


Compared to What

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Because They are All Disasters, Because Wyatt is Doing a Fine Job of Making a Mess on His Own, Do You Smell That? It's Trash. On Fire Trash., Dramatic Dumpster Diving Cats, Eventual Smut, F/M, Feel Free to Listen to the Movie Soundtrack as You Read This, Fic Writing? More Like Herding Cats, Garcia Flynn Human Disaster, I did, In Which Flynn Resists All My Attempts to Get Him Laid, Lucy Continues to Be a Queen, Lucy and Wyatt Jump Right on the Flynn Thirst Train, M/M, Messy Messy Boys, Multi, None of These People Know How to Flirt, Period-Typical Homophobia Was Taken Out Back and Shot, Polyamory, She Does Not Trip Wyatt, Slow Burn, Starring Angry Mechanic and Her Sidekicks Actual Trash Fire and Outraged Cowboy, The Dumpster Fire Burns Bright in This Fic, The Trash OT3 Returns, This Entire Fic is Lucy Sticking Her Leg Out and Tripping Flynn, Trash ot3, Trashier Than Ever, Was There Ever an AU so Perfectly Suited for These Three?, While Making Full Eye Contact, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis, eventual polyamory, methinks not, the man from uncle au, tmfu au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-08-20 23:29:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16565171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: Reluctant CIA asset Wyatt Logan and KGB ghost Garcia Flynn are assigned to team up, recover stolen nuclear plans, and protect mechanic-slash-scientist’s daughter Lucy Preston.Oh, and preferably without any of them killing each other along the way.





	1. In Which Wyatt Logan Gets in Over His Head. Twice.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [extasiswings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/gifts), [qqueenofhades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qqueenofhades/gifts).



> For extasiswings and qqueenofhades, who shamelessly gave me this fic idea and then shamelessly encouraged it.

CIA Special Agent Wyatt Logan got off the plane and tried to look nonchalant instead of annoyed.

It was difficult.

Nobody wanted to have to go behind the Iron Curtain for a mission, even temporarily. Theoretically he’d only be in East Berlin for an hour tops but every second he was there, the likelihood of getting caught increased.

Wyatt had been caught once, and only once. He didn’t intend to get caught again.

He waited patiently while his suitcase was checked, looking like a bored businessman who did this every week. He could still hear Denise’s lecture ringing in his ears: _get in, get out, don’t try anything fancy or we’ll court martial you for real this time._

Real cheerful stuff.

He glanced down at the silver globe of the flash on his camera. Wyatt hated taking pictures. Jess had always been the photographer. But placing it the way he had turned it into a kind of mirror that allowed him to see if someone was following him.

And someone was.

Jesus, the sneaky KGB agents must’ve all been home sick that day. The guy standing there pretending to read the paper was definitely over six feet, with a handso—distinctive face and a glower that could melt a wall of concrete.

No big deal. The KGB trailed everyone who crossed in. Wyatt knew how to lose a tail.

He made his way through the city, picking up a gun from another agent stationed permanently in the city, passed to him in a handoff inside a brown paper bag. It took him a while to get rid of the tail—this guy was annoyingly persistent—so it was dark by the time he got to the garage.

The mechanic’s garage, formerly run by one Joseph Schneider, now run by Lucy Preston, who still went by her maiden name despite having been (briefly) married to Joseph’s son Noah before Noah died of cancer.

Wyatt’s research showed that common gossip had it that was the reason Lucy had married Noah in the first place—his family had taken her in after Dr. Preston’s abandonment, everyone knew Noah was dying, and marrying him was the only way Lucy could inherit the garage. As far as anyone knew—again, according to Wyatt’s sources—Lucy Preston cared about one thing and one thing only: getting to America.

Now he could use that to his advantage.

He found her working underneath one of the cars in the garage, swearing quietly as she worked. Wyatt grinned. He rather did like this part of the job, getting to play James Bond a bit (it might have been a secret dream of his to meet Ian Fleming, but nobody had to know that).

“Interesting engine,” he noted, rapping on the side of the car. He stuck with English, knowing she knew it. “Put a pair of wings on this and it’ll fly.”

“Are you here to ask about a car?” Lucy Preston replied, pushing herself out from underneath the car, “Or are you getting your expensive shoes in my way because you want to practice your stand up routine?”

Wyatt’s heart skipped a beat. Wow. Pictures did not do Lucy Preston justice. Even with the grease and dirt smeared on her face, she was stunning. Brunette hair, thick and slightly curling, was pulled back away from her sharp, angled face, with big soft lashes and cheekbones that could cut glass. It was her eyes, though, that got him—big and dark and flashing, like lightning was hidden in there somewhere.

Wow.

“So?” Lucy asked, clearly annoyed Wyatt wasn’t saying anything. “You look important, or at least your suit does. Care to explain what you’re doing in my humble shop?”

“I have a proposition for you.” Wyatt wandered over to the desk, glancing out the window as he did so.

Oh, dammit, tall dark and gor—annoying was back. This mission just got a lot more complicated.

“I’m not free on Friday.”

“Ma’am—”

“Pretty sure we’re the same age.” Lucy stood up, wiping her hands off on a towel, and folded her arms. “So you can drop the whole ‘ma’am’ thing.”

“Miss Preston. The CIA is aware of your situation.”

“I’m sure they are.” Lucy shrugged. “They’ve been aware of it since I was six.”

“And they’re willing,” Wyatt went on doggedly, “to help you fix that situation.”

Ah ha, there was the map of the city. He’d known there had to be one around a car garage somewhere. He picked it up and grabbed a pen. He made sure to sound casual and not to make eye contact as he added, “It must be hard. Knowing there’s a sister out there you’ve never met.”

Lucy jerked, knocking over a sprocket wrench. “I’d be careful with your words, Mr…”

“Logan. Wyatt Logan.”

“Mr. Wyatt Logan. Don’t think I don’t know what you want in exchange.”

“Since you have it all figured out, Miss Preston, why don’t you tell me then?”

“You want my mom.”

“Bingo.”

Lucy shook her head. “I don’t know where she is. Nobody knows where she is.”

“But you could get in contact with her.”

“No, I can’t.” Lucy strode over to him, poking him in the chest. “My mom abandoned me, a six year old child, to take a deal in your precious America because she was too valuable to put up on trial with the rest of the Nazis. She had years to get in touch with me. Decades. She could’ve gotten me out any time. She didn’t. She had a new husband, and a new daughter, and she didn’t need me. Why the hell would you think she’d give me a way to contact her now that she’s disappeared?”

“Because your mother _couldn’t_ come and get you,” Wyatt replied.

Lucy froze. “Wh—what do you mean?”

Wyatt glanced out the window again. Damn, they didn’t have a lot of time. Any moment that tree of an agent would come bursting in here. “Did your mother ever tell you about your father?”

Lucy swallowed. “She said he died.”

“His name is Benjamin Cahill, and he’s the reason she couldn’t get you. If Carol Preston set foot in Europe or sent someone else, Cahill will move in. Our sources indicate he’s been keeping an eye on you for years to try and snag Carol. You were a honey trap.”

Lucy looked like the world had been yanked out from under her.

“Now Dr. Preston is missing and we think Cahill has something to do with it. But we didn’t know if Carol had found a way around his network to communicate with you.”

“No, no, there’s been nothing.”

Wyatt shrugged. “Then it’s on to Plan B, then.”

“Plan B?”

“We have you talk with dear old dad and see if he has her.”

Lucy shook her head. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Not even to meet Amy?”

Lucy’s jaw clenched. “Don’t you dare use my sister against me.”

“The sister who was born in the States.”

They stared each other down. Lucy was a tough one, and Wyatt saw in her eyes that she wasn’t giving in.

He sighed. “Look, you don’t have to like me. But I think you’ll take me over the KGB agent stationed out here watching.”

Lucy jumped a little, her eyes flicking towards the door.

“Yup. The KGB wants your mom too. They’ve always been pissed we got her before they did. He’s been outside for a bit now but he won’t stay outside much longer. So you can either spend the evening hanging by your toenails, or you can come with me, get over the wall and get to see your sister.”

Wyatt smirked at her.

Lucy punched him.

 

* * *

 

“Was that really necessary?” Pretty-but-annoying asked from the back seat of the car as Lucy drove out of the garage.

Her gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “He’s following us.”

The agent—she hadn’t gotten a solid look at him yet—had gotten into his own car and was obviously tailing them, not even bothering to be subtle. At this time of night, with no cars on the road and all sensible people inside… there was no need for subtlety anyway.

“I figured.” There was the sound of a paper bag opening, and then the squeak as the rear window was lowered.

Lucy slowed down and paused at a stoplight.

The agent’s car rolled up next to her.

“Is he next to us?”

Lucy glanced over. “Mmhmm.”

The guy was… well it was hard to tell with all the shadows but he looked chiseled. Made of marble. Like no emotion ever softened that face.

He also looked like the kind of guy she’d fuck in the back of the local bar in an ill-advised one night stand, with dark eyes and an expressive mouth and a strong, slightly stubbled jaw, but that was kind of irrelevant at the moment.

“Is he alone?”

Lucy hummed again, glancing over. Her eyes met those of the agent. To her surprise, he looked about as startled to make eye contact with her as she was to make eye contact with him.

She looked away.

“Does he have only one hand on the steering wheel?”

She dared to glance over again. She saw one hand on the wheel, a watch gleaming on the wrist, but where the other hand should be…

“Mmhmm.”

“When you hear something that sounds like a gunshot,” Wyatt said, “drive.”

Then he sat up and fired twice at the agent.

Lucy hit the gas.

Her heart was pounding. All her life she’d lived in danger, knowing that her mother’s enemies could come knocking at the door any day. Especially once Noah succumbed to the cancer and Joseph was long dead, leaving her alone. But never had that creeping concern been anything like the danger she was in now.

She had to play her cards right, or she’d lose not just her chance to meet her sister, but her life.

“Did you get him?” she asked as she took off down the street.

“…let’s hope he doesn’t drive as fast as he moves,” Wyatt said, sounding annoyed.

Lucy glanced behind them. “I’ve got bad news for you.” Dammit this guy was fast. “He does.”

But nobody knew cars better than she did.

As the car behind her started to gain, Lucy turned left, onto a street that quickly divided. “That’s not the way we need to go,” Wyatt warned.

“You can give me directions when he’s off our tail, now shut up.”

Wyatt, thankfully, shut up, although with a rather gobsmacked expression.

The divide was coming up—Lucy forced her car closer to the other guy’s, so close they were almost touching and he had to inch to the right, then again, then again—

And she spun her wheel to the left, taking off down the street as the agent, distracted, drove into the dead end junkyard on the right.

Lucy turned the corner quickly, then parked the car. “Get down.”

A moment later, she heard the agent’s car pass them.

Lucy’s heart felt like it was in her throat. Did they make it? “Is he gone?”

“I don’t think so,” Wyatt admitted. He got out of the car. “Drive around the block.”

Lucy did as she was told.

As she pulled out, the other agent’s car came into view, following her. Lucy grit her teeth and kept driving. She didn’t know this Wyatt Logan from Adam but he was her only chance to get to Amy. She had to be brave for just a little while longer.

And then Wyatt stepped out from behind both cars, took aim, and fired.

The agent’s car screeched and turned, crashing into a pole. Lucy stopped her own car, waiting for Wyatt to catch up, trying not to look at the wreck.

“Make a right here,” Wyatt said.

Lucy exhaled carefully. Looked like they were in the clear.

And then the agent kicked his damn car door open, somehow unfazed, and starting firing at them.

 

* * *

 

“Are you kidding me!?” Wyatt demanded, sitting up and watching as the guy literally chucked his damn gun at them once he ran out of bullets.

“He’s hit our tire,” Lucy warned, struggling to keep control of the car.

“Keep driving, make a left on the second street.”

“It dead ends.”

“Just trust me.”

“You can’t even kill a single agent! How am I supposed to trust you?”

Wyatt swore as the guy started actually running after them.

“He’s gaining,” Lucy observed.

“Is that thing even human?” Wyatt wondered aloud. Talk about stamina, Jesus Christ.

And then the guy caught up enough to actually grab the goddamn back of the car, digging his heels in.

…it occurred to Wyatt that perhaps he was in over his head. “He’s trying. To stop. The car.”

He was partially succeeding, too, what in the fresh hell…

“Why don’t you shoot at him?” Lucy demanded. She sounded like she was ready to snatch Wyatt’s gun and take care of it herself.

“Somehow, it just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.”

Lucy swore and made a sharp left—and the back bumper of the car detached in the agent’s hands, leaving him standing furiously in the street.

Wyatt waved at him. The agent threw the bumper.

“Ahem, Agent Logan,” Lucy said in an impatient tone. “We’re headed for a dead end.”

“Just keep driving.”

“The street is getting narrower.”

“Just keep driving.”

“Wyatt Logan unless you intend to make this car actually spontaneously fly over the wall—”

The street finally became too narrow and the car came to a stop with a harsh grinding of metal, pinning them in.

Lucy turned and glared at him. “No what?”

Wyatt reached across, trying not to get distracted by the earthy, mechanic smell of her as he lowered her window. “Take an immediate left.”

If looks could kill, the one Lucy sent him would’ve shot him where he stood.

As they climbed into the building, Wyatt could hear the footsteps and yelling of policemen in German, and then another, angrier voice, with an accent he couldn’t place, telling them to get out of his way.

Fuck, Agent Relentless was still out there.

“We gotta move,” he warned Lucy, taking her by the elbow and leading her through the apartment, up the stairs, and to the roof.

God bless Dave. Wyatt could see the van parked across the wall. He flashed his flashlight twice, then grabbed Lucy as he saw the van start up.

“Oh great, now there’s only a minefield, armed guards, and a wall to get across,” she muttered.

“Hold on to me.”

“I will do no such thing.”

Wyatt gestured to the zipline he’d set up with Dave. “You want to let that guy catch you?”

He was sure that Lucy could hear the pounding of footsteps drawing ever closure, the same way that he could. After a roll of her eyes she grabbed him, and he got an arm around her waist and hooked his belt over the zipline, sending them flying over the wall—literally.

They landed in the van with a thump, but Wyatt could feel the line moving again. Shit. “Dave, reverse!”

He turned in time to see the zipline lowering and lowering as the van reversed, until the agent had no choice but to land in the middle of the minefield in between East and West Berlin.

The guy glared up at him, looking the picture of fury.

Wyatt saluted him.

The agent saluted him back—with a middle finger.

“Dave? Start driving.”

 

* * *

 

Apparently, saving Lucy Preston’s life didn’t get Wyatt support from her or from his boss. Denise Christopher, his handler at the CIA, was waiting for him when he got Lucy back to his apartment, making herself far too comfortable on his sofa.

“Pretty sure you promised me a chic hotel at some point on the drive back,” Lucy noted as she stepped inside. “Oh, hello. You must be my newest blackmailer.”

“Agent Christopher,” Denise replied. “Make yourself at home, Wyatt should have prepared a space for you.”

“Of course I did. I’m not an animal.”

Lucy could clearly read the room and showed herself out. Denise raised an eyebrow at Wyatt. “I hear you’ve been flippant on missions again.”

The CIA made him work for them. They couldn’t make him be happy about it. “I got you Preston, I get you results. What’s there to complain about?”

“You got us Preston.”

“Yes. She doesn’t know where her mom is but—”

“So you’re telling me what I already know.”

Wyatt had the distinct feeling he was having the rug yanked out from under him. “What are you saying?”

Denise stood up and crossed over to him. “You lit up half of East Berlin. Gunshots? A car chase?”

“You should’ve seen what came after me! It was barely human!”

“You made a goddamn mess of it, Logan, and you’ve been making too many messes lately. I don’t know if this is some kind of death wish after Jess—”

“Don’t,” Wyatt growled. He barely recognized his own voice. “Don’t. Bring her up.”

He could remember doing something similar to Lucy earlier, and guilt twisted his stomach.

Denise shrugged as if to say _c’est la vie_. “You’ll report at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow, Logan. Keep Preston contained, and don’t be late.”

Wyatt swallowed down the things he wanted to say—the things he wanted to scream—and let Denise exit.

A simple extraction. That was all this was supposed to be. He’d done this dozens of times.

So how had he gone from a simple extraction to being terribly in over his head, _again_?

 

* * *

 

Lucy pressed her ear to the door, listening as Agent Logan got his ass handed to him by his boss. She hardly dared to breathe in case one of them realized she was listening.

The guy hadn’t made himself into her favorite person, but it sounded like he was in the same situation she was. She didn’t know who Jess was, or how Logan ended up working for the CIA, but he didn’t seem to be doing it for God and country.

After Noah had died, she’d cried for days. She’d felt like everyone in her life always abandoned her. Like she was always destined to be alone.

But maybe… maybe she wouldn’t be so alone in this after all.


	2. In Which the Garbage Gets to Voice His Point of View

Flynn was having a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day.

And given the horrendous, life ruining, awful, tragic, piece of shit days he’d had in the past, that was saying something.

When his handlers had told him all about his newest mission, he’d thought it would be a walk in the park. Wyatt Logan, CIA asset, was far from pleased to be a part of the great American fight against the evil KGB. One of the many dispossessed soldiers after World War II, he’d been a pretty decent smuggler, specializing in fine art—although his habit of getting things to people that they shouldn’t have been able to get started all the way back as a teenager running moonshine. He’d been a decent enough smuggler, in fact, that a special task force had been organized to take him down.

Even then, the file stated, it was only luck that they caught him.

Luck in the form of Jessica Logan.

Jessica had been the art expert, the one who picked out the pieces that Wyatt smuggled. They made quite the team and her file was only smaller than this because she hadn’t served as a soldier and so didn’t have military records. She’d gotten pregnant, insisted she could handle a job… the file didn’t say what happened, only that she’d ended up in the hospital, and Wyatt was visiting her when he was caught.

Terribly ironic that the day they caught him was the day Jessica Logan died.

Wyatt Logan had been presented with two choices: go to jail for the rest of his life, or work for the CIA. Given that the latter at least allowed him a longer leash… Flynn couldn’t blame him.

After all, he’d taken pretty much the same deal when it was offered to him.

Flynn’d had no doubt that he’d be able to take the guy easily, but what he hadn’t counted on was his other target: Lucy Preston.

Her driving had slowed him down just enough to give her and Logan the edge and send them over the wall, out of Flynn’s—and the KGB’s—easy reach. Needless to say, his handler wasn’t pleased.

Did he have any sympathy for Flynn getting shot at? Three times? Or that he’d literally sprinted and had clung to a back of a car until it ripped apart in his hands trying to keep it back?

Nope. No, what Flynn’s boss cared about was that Flynn hadn’t gotten him results.

Getting his ass chewed out after a mission went wrong, oh yes, just what Flynn wanted.

“You’re meeting me at oh eight hundred tomorrow,” he was told. “I want you looking sharp.”

Flynn wasn’t sure how sharp he’d be looking given that sleep was yet again eluding him, and his hands smarted from grabbing the car and he was covered in bumps and bruises, but whatever.

He went over Preston and Logan’s files again. Lucy Preston was… she was something, all right. He couldn’t help but be glad, in his heart of hearts, that she’d gotten over the wall. Flynn might work for the KGB because he had to. Didn’t mean he liked them. He could only do so much to protect an innocent person when they fell into his hands but the Americans liked to think of themselves as holier than thou, so hopefully they could protect her.

Flynn leaned back in the chair, the files dropping into his lap. God, he was tired.

Then the phone rang.

“ _Da_.” He hated speaking Russian. It had been years since he’d been able to speak Croatian. In fact… the last time had been when he’d spoken to Lorena, on that evening, just a few hours before…

“Flynn.” His handler, the fucker. “Things have changed, I need you prepared. And you’re not allowed to have one of your little episodes.”

…he might have gained a reputation in the KGB for setting not one, not two, but _three_ buildings on fire during his time with them.

And also punching all of a guy’s teeth out.

And punching another guy so hard his eye was permanently damaged.

…all right so maybe he had earned that reputation.

“Listen,” he snapped. “Tonight is not my fau—”

“The nature of our meeting has changed,” his handler cut in. “We’re meeting about Rittenhouse.”

Flynn’s blood went cold.

Rittenhouse.

The organization he’d been looking into as a private investigator, a favor for a friend after the war… the people who’d broken into his house.

The people who’d killed his beautiful baby girl and his beautiful wife.

The KGB had given him one option: join them and get a chance to get revenge on the neo-Nazi organization that had taken his family, or be left alone, and be hunted down by Rittenhouse and die.

And while there were moments where Flynn wanted to join his family, he wasn’t going to, not until he’d gotten them the revenge they deserved.

Now, at last, here was his chance.

“You’re certain?” he asked.

“Yes. So look sharp. And hold your temper. We need the Americans on our side.”

“We need the— _what_?”

The line cut out.

Great. His day had just, somehow, gotten worse.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt followed Denise into the park. “You couldn’t have picked a meeting time that was later in the day?”

“The early bird catches the worm, Logan.”

“Yeah, and it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese, Christopher.”

Denise indicated that they go into one of the little tile bathrooms that stood in the middle of the park by the lake like some squat octagon. Wyatt followed. “Don’t tell me we’re meeting in the bathroom.”

Denise sighed, entering and glancing around. “What I’m about to feed you might taste a little bitter, Logan. But you’ll have to swallow it.”

Wyatt stared at her. “You know that sounds like a joke about a bl—”

Someone else entered the bathroom, and Wyatt turned around.

And stared right at the face of the agent from last night.

Flynn, Garcia Flynn. He’d stayed up forever, poking around in the files, calling old contacts, rustling up friends (and annoying them to no end) to find out about the guy while Lucy slept in the bedroom. Fuckin’ ghost ever since he’d been recruited by the KGB. The stories about him had to be exaggerated, it was enough to convince Wyatt that the guy was a damn sociopath.

And he was currently glaring at Wyatt with the same amount of anger and surprise that Wyatt felt.

They launched at each other, Wyatt landing a solid hit on Flynn’s jaw before Flynn twisted him and slammed him into one of the stalls. Wyatt kicked back from the wall, sending Flynn crashing through one of the stall doors and hitting the toilet with a pained growl.

Denise just sighed and watched as Flynn came back up swinging, knocking Wyatt back. Wyatt managed to dodge the next blow but the guy was a fucking tank, his fists like concrete. He just straight up tackled Flynn, sending them both rolling across the filthy tiled floor, but Flynn did some kind of judo flip thing and got Wyatt onto his goddamn lap, hooking his arm around Wyatt’s neck and getting him into a headlock.

Fuck.

Wyatt kicked out, trying to get leverage, but Flynn had him secure, a solid wall of muscle that Wyatt couldn’t shake. The wildly inappropriate thought came that he was basically writhing on the guy’s lap, but Wyatt shoved that thought to the side and strained to get out.

Another man walked in, one that Wyatt vaguely thought he recognized. The man nodded at Denise, who nodded back. Then he looked over at Flynn and said in Russian,

“Don’t kill your partner on your first day.”

Flynn stared up at the guy and Wyatt realized that he looked familiar because he had to be Flynn’s handler. Flynn looked about as betrayed as Wyatt felt, but released him with a shove.

Wyatt coughed, trying to get his breath back. “What… did he say?”

“He said—”

“I speak Russian, I know what he said. What the fuck does it mean?”

Denise arched an eyebrow. “It means it’s time to swallow.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn didn’t like this.

He didn’t like this at all.

Sitting across from Wyatt Logan in a prissy little outdoor café by a lake while their handlers discussed partnering up like it was going to be a fun tea party or some bullshit…

“Here’s the problem,” Agent Christopher explained. “We’ve both been trying to keep an eye on this Rittenhouse group ever since the end of the war. They’re a splinter faction from the Nazis that think Hitler’s idea was a good one, just badly implemented towards the end. So far we’ve had a hard time getting a hold of who their members are, but we’ve identified two people we think are big members.”

She looked at Wyatt. “What do you need to create a nuclear bomb?”

Wyatt looked like a guy who’d been asleep when the teacher called on him. Flynn rolled his eyes. “Uranium,” he said.

Wyatt glared at him. Flynn glared back. Aww, did pretty boy hotshot get his panties in a twist?

Good.

“Precisely,” Agent Christopher said. “So far, nobody’s gotten their hands on any and all is well. But then Dr. Carol Preston went missing—which is why both sides here tried to nab Lucy Preston last night.”

Wyatt kicked Flynn under the table. Flynn kicked back.

“Dr. Preston has devised a way to create a nuclear bomb without the use of uranium, which completely changes the game. She was last seen here.” Christopher pulled out a photo and laid it on the table. “At the Keynes yacht in Italy. The Keynes were known Nazi sympathizers back in the day and we have reason to believe they’re Rittenhouse. Nicholas inherited the business technically and if we were just dealing with him we wouldn’t be too worried. He thinks he’s smarter than he actually is. But he married Emma Whitmore.”

Christopher laid down another picture, this one of an imperious looking redhead. “She’s got brains, beauty, and ambition. And word has it she’s running the show now. She’s also good friends with Dr. Benjamin Cahill, a former lover of Dr. Preston’s and another Nazi sympathizer. We have reason to believe they’ve got her—and if they do, and can get her to make a nuclear bomb for them—”

“You can see why we felt the need to team up, despite our usual conflicts of interest,” Flynn’s boss added.

“You two are going to escort Miss Preston to meet her dear estranged father for the first time,” Christopher said. “And see if she can’t wheedle out of him where her mother is. You then get the girl and her mother out of there.”

“What about Rittenhouse?” Wyatt asked.

Flynn’s thoughts exactly.

“Try, for once in your life, Logan, to be subtle,” Christopher said with a sigh. “We want Dr. Preston’s work out of their hands.”

Flynn already knew where this was going. Get that work out of the hands of Rittenhouse, and then watch the Americans and the Russians squabble over it.

Fun.

But if he got the chance to end the people that took the innocent lives of his family, then he’d do it.

“Excellent,” Christopher said, standing along with Flynn’s handler. “We’ll leave you two to look over those files and get acquainted.”

The entire rest of the café stood as well, and filed out.

Ah. Looked like their bosses didn’t trust them not to start another fight.

Flynn looked over at Wyatt. Wyatt glared back at him.

“Shame about the car,” Flynn said, smirking. He couldn’t resist.

“Shame you didn’t land on one of those mines,” Wyatt shot back.

Flynn rolled his eyes. “Amateur’s luck.”

“That’s what I am? An amateur?”

“You’re a soldier and a conman. Everyone knows your wife was the brains of your little operation. If you’d been any good at your job, you would’ve shaken your tail before you got to Miss Preston and you would’ve actually succeeded in shooting me. Instead you caused a scene.”

“I caused a scene? You tore the back off my car.”

“Miss Preston’s car.”

“Whatever. So you think you know me because you read my file?” Wyatt folded his arms and sat back. “Two can play that game. I’m shocked to hear that you’re working for the Russians, given that you weren’t too friendly to them even when they switched to going against Hitler during the war. Must’ve been hard, losing your parents at such a young age. Although… maybe not so much your dad. I hear he was pretty fast with his fists. Your mom, though, I hear you two were real close. Must’ve sucked to lose her. She was American by birth, right? That’s why she was targeted? Shot?”

Flynn could hear his pulse pounding in his ears, the world tilting and turning red.

“You watch your mouth.”

“Of course, losing a family once is bad enough.” Wyatt shrugged. “Losing them again—and right in front of your eyes. They said you did it, had a psychotic break. That’s when the Russians got you.”

He leaned in. “Is that why you started working for them? Got a taste for murder and mayhem and just thought, what the hell I’ll make a career out of it?”

Flynn flipped the table, sending the photos and files flying. He stood up, looming over Wyatt, feeling his hands clenching into uncontrollable fists.

“Rittenhouse killed my family,” he growled. He didn’t even recognize his own voice, the anger in it raw and all-consuming. “That is why I’m here, and that is why I’m not strangling you where you stand. I’m not compromising this mission.”

He leaned down, bracing his hands on the arms of Wyatt’s chair, caging the guy in. “You know, we’re not so different, the two of us. You might want to remember that—and while you’re at it, remember that this mission doesn’t last forever. The moment it’s over, you can go back to your fun little job as a bird in a cage… or your ass can be mine. Choose. Wisely.”

He stood up, feeling his hands starting their telltale shake, the one that warned he was about to lose control—and stormed off before he could ruin everything by smashing the smarmy hothead’s face in.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt had two thoughts watching Flynn storm off:

One, he’d just landed a mission babysitting a nutcase.

Two, why the _fuck_ was he so turned o—

Nope.

Nope, no, not, not at all, ending that thought, deleting it, closing the book, full stop, period, end of story.

...he needed a drink.

 _Fuck_.


	3. In Which It Doesn't Have to Match

The trip to Italy wasn’t as pleasant as one would think a trip to Italy would be. When Lucy had pictured traveling, it had always been as an adventure, a vacation, even. Perhaps with Amy by her side.

Amy.

That was why she was here, in Italy, ready to meet the man who insisted he was her father and hopefully find and deal with her mother once and for all. So that she could go to America and find Amy.

Wyatt was quiet during the flight for the most part. Whatever he’d been told in his early morning meeting with Agent Christopher, it hadn’t been good.

Lucy gripped the armrests as the plane gave a jolt. Wyatt looked over at her. “Fear of flying?”

“Claustrophobia. I got a little reckless with a car once, drove into the river. I was trapped in there and would’ve drowned if Noah hadn’t gotten me out. I’ve had a problem with tight spaces ever since.”

Wyatt didn’t say anything, but he reached over, putting his hand over hers. Lucy gripped it tightly, unashamed when it came to this. Getting close to a spy tasked with being her handler probably wasn’t the best idea, but she was in a fragile tin can with no way out. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“I’m sorry about all this, by the way,” Wyatt said quietly as they touched down. “I know you didn’t ask for this.”

It was an olive branch, and she was happy to take it. If she could get Wyatt to like her, really like her, she had a better chance of getting out of this in one piece. “You didn’t ask for this either,” she replied, just as quiet. “Did you?”

Wyatt looked away, his throat working. “No. No, I didn’t. Not everyone chooses to be a spy, Miss Preston. Some of us had no other way.”

Boy, did she understand that. “Then let’s see if we can get through this together.” She squeezed his hand again.

Wyatt looked back at her, nodding, a ghost of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth. “I’d like that.”

They disembarked, and Lucy set foot in a country other than East Germany for the first time.

She wanted to scream in relief. She was never going back there. Never.

Wyatt took her straight to a high-end store so she could be properly outfitted. “You want to blend in,” he told her.

Lucy wasn’t one for extravagance. The shoes in a place like this cost more than her car. But if the CIA was footing the bill… and it was her one chance to look classy, to dress nicely after wearing a mechanic’s outfit day in and day out…

She looked through the racks, feeling woefully behind the times. Fashion had sprung forward what felt like centuries since the wall had gone up.

The bell to the shop dinged as someone entered, and Lucy turned around.

Oh no. Hell no.

“You!” she said, striding towards the KGB agent. “You—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Wyatt said, getting in between her and the guy she was about to maul. He was a foot taller than she was but who cared, she’d just break his kneecaps. “The Red Peril is working with us.”

That gave her pause. “The… the CIA and the KGB? Working together?”

“To stop a Neo-Nazi organization from getting a nuclear bomb? Yes.”

Lucy stared at Flynn. “So what is he doing here?”

Flynn raised an eyebrow and said in an accent that wasn’t Russian but definitely not anything else she could pinpoint, “I’m your fiancé.”

…what.

Lucy pointed at Flynn. “No.”

Flynn paused, like a cat that had just been told it couldn’t knock the glass off the table and was considering if it should do it anyway.

Lucy looked at Wyatt. “Absolutely not.”

Wyatt put his hands up. “I’m not in charge, okay, I didn’t decide this.”

Lucy glared at Flynn. “You wrecked my car.”

“…it was my job,” Flynn replied. He was starting to look a little lost now.

“You wrecked my _office_.”

Flynn looked at Wyatt in a bit of a panic. Wyatt shook his head as if to say _you’re on your own, man, she’s terrifying me too._

Lucy poked Flynn in the chest. Their height difference was hilariously obvious like this. She had to get up onto her tiptoes to get into his face properly. Lucy refused to let it intimidate her. “You. Are not. My. Fiancé. Fake or otherwise.”

“I could be your…” Wyatt started.

“No,” both Flynn and Lucy snapped immediately.

Wyatt gave Flynn a look of complete betrayal.

“Find some other way,” Lucy told them, stepping back. She’d been standing rather close to Flynn just then and she hadn’t liked the view. Or, rather, she had liked the view a little more than she wanted to admit. He was good looking, if nothing else. “Or I’m out.”

She then carefully removed the jewelry she’d been trying on—no reason to get arrested for shoplifting—and walked out the door.

 

* * *

 

Shit. Wyatt glared at Flynn, who glared right back. “Real smooth, Peril.”

“Don’t call me that,” Flynn all but snarled. “I’m not Russian.”

“But you work for them.”

“It was that or be murdered by Rittenhouse. Which one would you have gone with? Oh, that’s right, you made the same deal, just with the CIA.”

Wyatt glared at him. So the guy knew about Jess, about—about that day. Fine. Whatever. “I’m going to go get her. Try not to cause too big of a mess while I’m gone.”

He walked out to find Lucy on the street, her arms folded, looking about ready to hitchhike if that was what it took to get her out of there. “Lucy.”

She turned, pointing back towards the store. “What was that, Logan? Hmm?”

“He and I both need a reason to be here. Garcia Flynn is your fiancé and an architect in charge of studying the famous designs here so that he can recreate them in East Berlin. And, as your loving fiancé, he’s gotten you out so that you can meet your father and you, an orphan with no other family, would like to meet said father to see if he can be there for your wedding.”

It was plausible… to anyone who didn’t know Lucy Preston. He'd only known her for a short time and already he could tell she'd rather smack Benjamin Cahill and possibly hit him with her car than play the dutiful, loving daughter.

“And who are you?” Lucy asked. Probably to distract herself.

“I’m Jesse Moore, antiquities dealer.” Moore had been Jess's maiden name. Maybe some would call it morbid but she'd been the art expert. It helped him feel like she was still there with him in some way, assisting him. After he'd lost her, her and the baby... he'd had no tether, no anchor, no compass. He'd do whatever it took to feel steady on this mission. Everything was riding on this. Not just Lucy's freedom, but his as well.

“Putting that art theft information to good use, I see.”

“It’s why the CIA forcibly hired me.” Wyatt winked at her. “Now c’mon, let’s go back in, try on a few outfits, and check into the hotel. It won’t be so bad, I promise.”

“Okay.” She let him take her hand and lead her back inside.

 

* * *

 

Flynn looked through the racks of clothes. What kind of shit had that cowboy been putting Miss Preston in? She was nothing short of stunning, she deserved much better outfits than these.

He selected a few new ones and had the helpful salesgirls set them aside. Lorena had been a salesgirl when he’d met her, ducking into a store to get out of the rain. She’d always told him the crazy customer stories, and all about fashion. Taught him everything he knew.

She was still there for him, in little ways like this.

“We’ll need an evening purse…” Hmm, yes, for parties. “And everyday clutch.”

The salesgirls, sensing a big spender and a man who actually, shockingly, knew what he was talking about, were quick to obey.

The bell tingled again and Flynn turned around to see Lucy Preston marching over to him with a determined look on her face.

…he was very, very worried about having to spend a lot of time in close quarters with this woman. Worried for his life, his sanity, and also…

His heart thumped wildly as she came to stand in front of him.

Yeah, he was worried for his heart as well.

“So,” she said.

“So,” he replied.

…he was an idiot.

“I took the liberty of setting aside some clothes for you.” He gestured at the ones he’d had the salesgirls hang up. “I thought dark red would be good on you for evenings but the powder blue for the afternoon.”

Lucy looked at him, and then looked at the dresses. Her cheeks grew a little pink. “I, um, thank you.”

“Unless you disagree. Perhaps you would prefer green?”

“No, no, it’s, ah, I never thought about it.” She shrugged. “No reason to dress up.”

Well, now she had plenty of reasons to dress up. She could show off her beauty, let the world see her instead of hiding herself under baggy clothes and motor oil. “You’re not in a mechanic’s garage anymore, chop shop girl.”

Lucy gave him a look that could only be described as scathing and picked up one of the outfits. “I’ll be back.”

Wyatt walked over the moment she disappeared into the dressing room. “What are you doing?” he hissed. “I picked out clothes for her already.”

“You did. I saw. They were awful.”

“Excuse me?”

“You picked out clothes that look like she came over the wall.”

“She did come over the wall, Flynn.”

“But no man who could afford it and loved his wife would let her dress like that. She’ll be embarrassed, a fish out of water. He would make sure she could dress herself in the latest fashions. Lucy’s beautiful, any man would be a fool not to let her show herself to her best advantage.”

Wyatt blinked at him in surprise. “You’ve… thought a lot about this.”

“I’m not all muscle, Cowboy.”

“…what did you just call me?”

Flynn ignored him and went back to looking at the dresses. One of the salesgirls brought over some belts. “Ah, thank you.”

Wyatt frowned. “You’re putting her in that? No, no, no. You can’t put a Paco Rabanne belt on a Patou.”

“She’s not going to wear a Patou.”

“What’s wrong with the Patou.”

“Nothing, if you’re heavyset. She is not. You're dressing her for the wrong body type.” He held up the dress and belt. “The Dior goes with the Rabanne.”

“It won’t match,” Wyatt insisted.

Flynn took a step towards him, feeling his gut tighten as Wyatt’s eyes went a little wide. “It. Doesn’t. Have. To match.”

Lucy emerged. “Okay, what do you think?”

Flynn just about swallowed his tongue.

She was wearing one of the dark red dresses, and even with her hair only brushed and minimal makeup, she was…

Um. Yes. She was.

The dress hugged her body, showing off her minimal curves, the scoop neck revealing her pale neck and, um, yes the rest of that area, with a tight little belt at the waist and a small shoulder cape to go with it to add some flair.

“What do you think?” she asked, walking over.

Flynn thought that he—ah—that thinking was a little hard right now, that’s what he thought.

…oh God no pun intended.

He looked over at Wyatt, who appeared to also be mentally struggling to get his jaw off the ground. “You can get back on your horse now, Cowboy.”

Wyatt glared at him, then flicked his gaze over to Lucy. “I’ll see you both at the hotel.”

Flynn reached into his pocket as Wyatt left, pulling out the ring he’d chosen. And here he’d thought he’d never put a ring on another person after Lorena died.

Clearly the universe liked to laugh at him.

He took Lucy’s hand and started to slide the ring onto it. Lucy’s hand retracted faster than a snake. “What’s this?”

“You’re my fiancée. You need a ring.”

Lucy slowly stuck her hand back out again and let Flynn slide the ring on. He tried not to think about how warm her hand felt, or how small it was compared to his. “Congratulations,” he said, letting go. “Now we are engaged.”

Lucy gave him the most terrifying deadpan look he’d ever seen.

…this was going to be a rough mission.


	4. In Which Lucy Has to Play Mother and Does Not Like It

Lucy tried not to look too impressed with the nice hotel that she and Flynn checked into. Up ahead of them a distinguished looking man was receiving his key, speaking with a soft, polished British accent. The receptionist replied to him in English with the same accent, with only a trace of her native Italian below it. The bellhops wore clothes cleaner than hers usually were, complete with white gloves. Two men lounged in chairs, their shoes looking more expensive than Lucy’s entire garage. The chandelier seemed to take up the entire ceiling and glittered like diamonds.

She was definitely out of her element now.

Flynn kept a light hold on her as they checked in and got up to their room. If he sensed her surprise and discomfort at the posh surroundings, he was thoughtful enough not to mention it. They did make a handsome couple, Lucy thought, their images reflected back at them in the polished gold sheen of the elevator doors. Flynn with his suit, her with her very nice new powder blue skirt and top with its chic little jacket, the both of them looking like they were headed for a night on the town.

Which was, Flynn informed her, exactly what they were doing.

“Excuse me?” she’d gotten distracted by the huge room, the furnishings that looked like they belonged in Versailles, and—hello, the wonderfully stocked minibar.

Mmm vodka.

“Lucy, we have to act like a couple,” Flynn said. Now that she heard his voice more she couldn’t believe she’d ever mistaken him for Russian. She hated that she liked how he said her name, pinching and drawing out the middle vowel, his tongue curling around it. “So we go out, we see the sights, have a little walk, let people see us.”

“Let my father’s agents see us, you mean.”

“…yes,” Flynn acknowledged. “Rumor states that Rittenhouse has eyes all over the city. It has become their headquarters with the Keynes in charge. Your father will see you and invite you to join him at the anniversary party tomorrow. The Keynes are celebrating fifty years of their family shipping company.”

“Auspicious.” She noted the two separate beds. Pity.

“Well, then?”

She turned to see Flynn standing there by the door, eyebrows raised. He held out an arm for her.

Lucy walked over and slid her arm in his. “And where is Agent Logan?”

Flynn looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. “Glad to hear you’re so concerned about him.”

Oh for heaven’s sake… “Yes, I’m deeply devoted to worrying about his safety. After all, he’s only the third part of this entirely independent operation with no backup help from America or Russia. It’s not as if I have to depend on him and you to keep me from being murdered in a back alley.”

“No one will murder you,” Flynn said, turning to face her. His voice was at once fierce and gentle, like a storm raging around her but she was in the eye of it, safe. She couldn’t help but jump a little at his tone. Flynn’s face softened a bit. “You are safe. I promise you that.”

“Why, because you’ll keep me safe?”

His tongue darted out, wetting his lip. “Yes,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “I will.” The corner of his mouth ticked upwards. “It’s in wedding vows, isn’t it?”

“I’m pretty sure most wedding vows skip the ‘to protect from violent enemy spies’ bit.”

“You sure it isn’t right after ‘to love and to cherish’?”

“Familiar with wedding vows then, are you?”

Flynn’s face shut down faster than a car slammed on its brakes. “We should go.”

…what? “All—all right, then.”

Flynn literally didn’t say anything for half an hour. She knew it was half an hour, because she checked by glancing at the watch he wore. She tried starting conversation, but Flynn only responded with clipped one-word answers or grunts.

Yes, grunts. She was fake-married to a caveman, it seemed.

Tragic, because Rome was beautiful, including at night. The fountains and stairs were lit up, people were chatting out on the patios of chic cafes… Lucy spied a gelato stand.

“We should get some.” She was hungry.

“Why?”

“Because we’re two people supposedly in love taking a walk in Rome, and I’m hungry, and it’s what people do, and you can’t get things like this in East Berlin.”

Flynn started a little and looked down at her. His face was… not entirely readable, but softer than before. “It’s true. You can’t.”

Lucy got chocolate and Flynn got strawberry. She couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic as she watched him eat. “What?” Flynn asked. He looked—did he look embarrassed? The big bad KGB agent, embarrassed to eat gelato.

“Nothing, it’s—it’s silly.”

Flynn just raised an eyebrow at her. Lucy sighed. “When I learned I had a sister… I used to dream about my mom coming and getting me. Rescuing me, bringing me to America. I knew what the street she lived on looked like in my mind’s eye. I’d thought it all up. And she’d walk me up to the house, past the little white fence and the thick green lawn—the house would be blue, I decided, and it would have white curtains and two stories and a tree for climbing.

“She’d walk me into the house, and there would be a dad, sitting in a chair reading the paper, and there would be my sister. Amy.” Lucy could feel a wistful smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “She’d have this big smile on her face and be wearing this pink dress, and she’d run up to me and hug me… and she’d smell just like strawberries.”

Lucy looked down at her own gelato and took a few bites, just to avoid having to look at Flynn’s face. “Like I said, it’s silly.”

“I’ll get you to her,” Flynn said, his voice achingly gentle. “Lucy, I promise. We’ll get you to Amy.”

“Doesn’t change what happened or didn’t happen.” She kept looking at her gelato, focusing on eating that. If she had to look at Flynn she’d cry, and she hadn’t cried in front of anyone besides Noah, ever.

“No. But we can move forward and make good of what’s still in front of us.” Flynn took a deep breath. “I had… a wife. A daughter.”

Lucy’s head shot up in spite of herself. “What?”

“Where do you think this came from?” Flynn held up his left hand, showing his wedding ring.

“I thought—for the cover—”

“Ah. No. It’s real.” He rubbed the ring absently. “Lorena and Iris. Iris was six when she died. Home invasion, the police said. But I knew the truth. I’d been looking into Rittenhouse, and they found out.”

“Flynn. I—I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged, gazed sardonically off into the distance. “My initial plan was to join them, eat a bullet. But the KGB offered me revenge if I worked for them.”

“And… now’s your chance.”

Flynn nodded. “I can’t get my girls back. But I can work forward. I can avenge them. You can’t get those years back, Lucy, and I’m sorry for it. But you can work forward. If we pull this off, the CIA will get you to America. They’ll cut you a deal.”

“And the KGB?”

“Don’t worry about them.” They were still walking arm in arm, and he moved his hand down to take hers, squeezing gently. “You’re safe with me.”

Lucy felt the overwhelming urge to ask him to hug her. Stupid as it was, she did feel safe with him.

Probably the years of isolation talking. She had to keep her head above water, here, and falling into a puddle for Flynn to clean up was not how to do that.

Instead she turned, gesturing at the famous set of steps before them. “All right, Mr. Architect. Can you tell me about these?”

Flynn noticed the change in subject—he was far from stupid—but graciously played along. “Ah, yes, the so-called Spanish Steps. Built in 1725, supposedly by a Roman architect. Actually, by a man from Split.”

“Oh? Is that so.” Lucy took off her high heels. They were killing her.

“Yes. By the name of Matija Novak.”

Lucy sat on the edge of the fountain. She was intrigued to see where this little tall tale went. She suspected Flynn was telling it partially to help lighten the mood, but if so she was willing to play along to an extent. “Uh-huh.”

“Yes. Now, Matija had a mother of whom he was very fond. She supported his dream to be an architect, and he claimed she was his muse. But unfortunately, she died before the steps could be completed so… in honor of her…” Flynn gestured at the steps. “He built one step for every year of her life.”

“Fascinating. So… she died at the age of a hundred and twenty five?”

Flynn looked like a rabbit that had just seen a fox. “…no. He was thirty, she was ninety five, it was ninety five steps for her life and thirty for how old he was when she died.”

“So she gave birth at age sixty?”

“…no.”

There was the sound of a motor and one of those chic little scooters that the Italians were so found of tearing around in came up to them—bearing none other than Wyatt Logan. He did a good job of pulling off the casual look, Lucy could give him that.

“What are you doing here,” Flynn hissed. “You’re not supposed to be making contact.”

“And you two are being followed.”

“By the men in the cheap brown suits, I know, they’ve been watching us since the hotel.”

Fear shot through Lucy like a spear of ice and she had to force herself to stay still and relaxed instead of looking over her shoulder to try and see these men. “Are they Rittenhouse?”

“They must be,” Wyatt said, “and they’re testing you. They’ll want to make sure you’re genuine. So when they come up to you and rattle you around a bit… do us a favor and be a wimp, Peril.”

“You think you can come here and tell me how to do my job?”

“Do you really want me to answer that question?”

Lucy rolled her eyes. The only benefit to watching these two argue was that they looked very pretty doing it. Speaking of handsome couples…

“All right.” She stood up, putting her annoying heels back on. “Flynn gets the message, Wyatt, we’ll be fine.”

Wyatt looked at her, his eyes darkening with concern. “You sure you’re all right?”

“Flynn will keep me safe.” She was pretty sure the guy who tore off the back of a car could keep two men from doing anything to her.

Wyatt nodded, glancing over at Flynn. “Ah, be careful, Peril, seriously.”

“I should be saying the same to you, Cowboy, where’s your helmet? You crash in that thing your brains would get dashed in, if you had any.”

“Aww, always glad to know you care.” Wyatt backed up the scooter. “See you.”

“Run along, Cowboy.”

Wyatt flipped him off as he drove away.

“Will we really have to, um, let them get to us?” Lucy asked.

Flynn offered her his arm again. This time when she took it he tucked her securely into his side. “Don’t worry. You’re Benjamin Cahill’s daughter. They won’t touch you.”

“But what about you?”

Flynn looked both pleased and embarrassed that she cared to ask about him. “You’re the important one here, Chop Shop Girl.”

Lucy didn’t know what to say to that, so she just let Flynn lead her down the darkened street.

 

* * *

 

Flynn could feel Lucy’s heat against his side, trying to keep his stride slow and short so that she could keep up with him as they walked around the Coliseum.

He couldn’t feel her pulse, but he could imagine it was going like a jackrabbit’s. But he’d seen those men from the first, and he’d seen when they peeled off so that they could run ahead and surprise him around the corner.

They wouldn’t touch her. Not this innocent, not this woman who’d been swept up in all this by accident of blood and because she dared to seize her chance to find her family.

The two men came into view up ahead, one of them whistling, both lounging around like predators preparing to strike, proving their prowess by showing how lazy they were, how effortless this was for them.

Flynn stuffed his free hand into his pocket to hide how it was shaking with anger.

“Nice evening,” one of the men said in accented English.

“It is, isn’t it?” Flynn responded.

Lucy pressed herself closer to his side. Flynn forced himself to keep walking and not to put his arm around her. It would comfort her, perhaps, but it would also show that one or both of them was scared. He couldn’t do that.

“Nice shoes, too,” the man continued.

“Thank you.”

The man jumped down in front of Flynn. He was a good six inches shorter than Flynn was. “You should let me have them.”

Flynn made a show of looking the guy up and down. “I don’t think they’ll fit you.”

“The watch, then.”

The world went a little red around the edges.

That was Mama’s watch. The only possession of Maria Flynn that he owned. She’d been brilliant, she could’ve been anything she wanted if she hadn’t had such a bastard for a husband—and if the Germans hadn’t put her against a wall and shot her.

The guy’s friend tried to come at Flynn from the side but Flynn saw him coming. He punched out, careful to only deal enough damage to inconvenience the guy, not kill him. He wasn’t supposed to be the kind of guy who knew how to fight like that.

The guy’s friend choked, hit in the throat, and stumbled back. The first guy drew his knife.

“Flynn, no!” Lucy grabbed his arms, getting in between.

Flynn struggled not to give into the urge to fight, to destroy. Lucy was in between, if that man moved he’d put a knife in her back, he couldn’t let anything happen to Lucy, Lucy who just wanted to meet her sister—

“Flynn, Flynn, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Lucy was talking to him, trying to talk him down. “Flynn, Garcia. Garcia.”

He looked down and saw her eyes—she was terrified.

He forced himself to breathe.

“And the ring,” the man added, clearly seeing Lucy’s engagement ring.

Lucy whipped around and gave the man a look of such loathing and disdain that Flynn was shocked the guy didn’t die on the spot.

She tugged her ring off. “Here.” She dropped it into his palm, like a queen deigning to give alms to a beggar.

Then she looked at Flynn expectantly.

Flynn swallowed. Taking that watch off was… his fingers were shaking, he couldn’t do it…

Slim fingers replaced his, and Lucy carefully took the watch off for him, handing it to the man. She grabbed his hand, squeezing tightly until he started to squeeze back.

The man gave a mocking bow, then grabbed his friend and hurried off.

Flynn sagged and Lucy brought her hands up to cup his face. “Garcia. Look at me. What was that?”

“I think we’d all like to know what that was.”

Flynn was going to murder Logan in his sleep. “What are you doing here?”

“Making sure you didn’t bungle it. You punched the guy!”

“No self-respecting Russian—which is where they think I am from—would let a man so easily walk away with his woman’s ring, or his mother’s watch!”

Wyatt’s face went a little pale. “Your mother’s watch.”

“Yes. A Russian agent would have killed both men. Russian pride is strong, Cowboy, as is Slavic pride. If I’d been meek they would have been just as suspicious.”

“…you actually thought this through,” Wyatt said, sounding surprised and impressed. Which, actually, was a good look on him.

“I’m not an idiot.” But he hadn’t planned on losing the watch.

Wyatt looked at him oddly, and it took Flynn a moment to realize that was because Wyatt was looking at him, for the first time, with genuine respect in his eyes.

It took Flynn another moment to realize he really, really liked that Wyatt looked at him like that.

“Excuse me?” Lucy said, folding her arms.

Both men looked at her.

“You are supposed to be protecting me. Not squabbling like children. You’re the experienced agents, so why am I playing mother? Hmm?” She took off her shoes again—they were clearly bothering her. Flynn guessed she’d never worn heels before. Lorena had complained about them too. Perhaps he could offer to massage her feet later?

Oh, God, what was he thinking? Bad idea, bad idea. Lucy was already too close to him, too dear to him, for his own good. Inviting more intimacy, when at best they were going to succeed on this mission and she’d go to America and he’d never see her again—it was a disaster of the highest order.

But, still, she did look tired and her feet were probably sore…

Without letting himself think about it further, Flynn scooped her up into his arms. Lucy squeaked.

“Just what are you doing?” Wyatt asked, but his voice sounded a little strangled.

“Her feet hurt. I can carry her back to the hotel.”

“The whole way?” Wyatt sounded even more strangled.

“Yes? She’s very light.”

“I’m very light,” Lucy said faintly.

Flynn wanted to ask what the hell had gotten into the two of them, but then Lucy put her arms around his neck, apparently resigned to this situation, and that distracted him quite a bit.

Wyatt and Lucy kept up a steady stream of chatter with one another since, apparently, Wyatt was going to accompany them back because fuck cover stories and all that.

He wished he had their easy camaraderie, the way they seemed to slide into friendship like it was nothing, the way Wyatt made Lucy laugh and the telltale way she made him blush. But Lucy was a warm secure weight in his arms, trusting him to hold her (and he got to stare at Wyatt’s ass) so, y’know… he’d take what he could get.

 

* * *

 

Lucy was drunk.

Flynn would have found this adorable, except that the reason she was getting drunk was that they’d gotten a phone call upon returning to the hotel room.

A phone call from Benjamin Cahill.

“Of course, Father, we’d be delighted,” Lucy had said, her voice full of sweet humble surprise while her gaze sent daggers into the wall across from her. “Garcia and I would love to attend. It is such short notice, are you sure Mrs. Keynes won’t mind? You’re too kind. Yes, I’ve been looking forward to this too. See you tomorrow then.”

The moment she’d hung up she’d made a beeline for the vodka and she’d been dancing around the room and swaying like a sailor who hadn’t found his land legs again yet.

Flynn attempted to play some chess, tried to think about something other than Lucy in her pajamas, her hair loose, her hips swaying and the loose pajama top sometimes moving just so around the curve of her breasts…

God dammit.

He got up, crossing into the bedroom area. “Turn this music off.” He couldn’t be sexually frustrated if he was asleep.

Lucy grabbed his hands. “Dance with me.”

Flynn wasn’t sure what to say to that. Lucy made his hands sway back and forth, shuffling in lazy swing dance movements—and then she used his own hand to smack him.

Flynn tried to yank his hands away but she laughed, dizzy and drunk, and his heart squeezed so tight he couldn’t breathe. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll just—”

She smacked him again.

Flynn took his hands away and turned off the radio. “Don’t make me put you over my knee.”

Lucy pouted. “So you don’t want to dance?” A sly look came into her eyes then, and she dropped her weight. “But you do want to wrestle.”

“That’s not what I sa—”

Too late.

Lucy launched herself forward and literally tackled him, catching him off guard enough that he fell onto the couch. He tried to grab her, to pin her wrists and subdue her, but Lucy was fast and apparently had some kind of fight training because she wriggled out of his grasp and sent him crashing into the wall as he tried to stand up.

Fuck, he had to be gentle with her, he couldn’t hurt her—he managed to pick her up but then she hooked her foot around and jammed her heel into the back of his knee, making him fall on his back, Lucy on top, straddling him.

…oh fuck.

She peered down at him, her dark eyes gleaming. She brushed some of his hair out of his face, her fingertips trailing down his cheek. Flynn’s heart was hammering, and parts of him that he’d really been outright ignoring for the past two years were taking a decided interest in the warm, gorgeous, wiggling person on top of him.

“I like this,” Lucy whispered. Her fingertips found his lips.

“You like what?”

“How you’re looking at me,” she said, sounding breathless and wondering.

Lucy leaned down slowly, by degrees, unbearably so until she had to brace her hands on the carpet on either side of him. Flynn felt paralyzed, unsure what to do—to roll her off of him? To ask her to stop? To give into the horrible, horrible desire to close the distance between them and kiss her, kiss her soft and sure but deeply, all-consuming, the way he was aching to?

Before he could decide anything, Lucy made the choice for him. She bent down all the way, her eyes sliding closed, her lips brushing with a terrible, aching softness against his…

And then she slumped to the side, passed out.

…ah.

He carried her carefully to bed, her arms and legs wrapped around him. It reminded him almost of when he would carry Iris to bed—and the large height difference certainly helped with that—and he felt a rush of protectiveness so strong he almost choked on it.

Lucy was a far cry from a six-year-old child. But she was lost, all the same. He’d lost his daughter but that didn’t mean he had to let Rittenhouse get another innocent.

He helped Lucy into bed, pulling back the covers and gently placing her in the middle. Lucy clung to him, and he had to gently pry her hands away from him, pulling the covers back over her.

She reached for him as he started to walk away, and he turned back, thinking she was awake, that she might say something…

Her hand dropped away.

Flynn swallowed, his throat thick, and turned and walked out the door.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt pushed back from the wall as Flynn exited. “Quite a ruckus I heard going on in there.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Flynn hissed, walking over to him and grabbing him by the arm. “We can’t be seen together, what part of that was hard for you to understand?”

“It’s after midnight, Peril, we’re fine.”

Flynn pushed him back against the wall and Wyatt had a blinding, pulse-pounding moment of arousal so pure his legs almost buckled.

Dear God, Flynn was strong. Wyatt wanted Flynn to lift him and slide his hands up Wyatt’s legs and—

What the fuck was wrong with him? He’d had—all right, so he’d snuck a couple glances at guys in the trenches but who the hell hadn’t? Who hadn’t had a mutual jackoff session with a buddy because it was war and it was awful and they missed home and they were all each other had?

But this—this was different. This was stronger, for one thing, this was like alcohol slick and vibrant in his veins, this was a goddamn horse kick to the chest. Wanting Flynn was like getting hit from the side by a truck and he had no fucking defense against it.

He just—he wouldn’t think about it, that was all. Just like he didn’t think about his awful goddamn situation, or Jess, or the baby, or Dad, or—half of his life, take your pick.

It was fine.

“Is Lucy okay?” he asked instead.

Flynn immediately let go of Wyatt, turning to lean against the wall next to him. “We got a call from Cahill. We’re in.”

“That’s good.”

“She then got drunk and trashed the room.”

“…not good.” Wyatt scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Is she going to be okay tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s a lot riding on this.”

“I’m aware, Cowboy.”

Wyatt ignored the curl in his gut at the nickname. “I—should I talk to her?”

Flynn shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s not like us, Logan. She’s not a soldier. She’s not a spy. She just wants to find her sister.”

“I know.” Wyatt huffed out a bitter laugh. “She’s the only one of us sad sons of bitches with family left. Feels like I owe it to her to get her back to hers.”

“I’m sorry,” Flynn said. “About your wife and your child.”

“I’m sorry about yours. You want revenge against Rittenhouse, man, you want to slip in a few extra bullets—I’ll look the other way.” He wasn’t so lucky to have people to blame for Jess’s death.

“What happened to her? Jessica? Your file didn’t say.”

Wyatt’s eyes felt hot. “She, uh, wasn’t dilating all the way. The baby’s head got stuck. The doctors tried—she started bleeding, and bleeding, and the baby wasn’t breathing, and so they went for an emergency cesarean, but it just—it all went wrong, and they both—they both died.”

Flynn reached out, his hand resting softly on Wyatt’s shoulder, his fingers digging in, massaging slightly. He didn’t say anything, and Wyatt was glad for that. He just stayed there with him for a while until Wyatt felt like he could breathe without feeling like someone was stabbing him.

“Get some sleep, Wyatt,” Flynn said softly, and Wyatt hated himself for thinking it sounded like Flynn’s voice was caressing his name.

His first name—when had Flynn ever said that? Was this the first time?

But Flynn was already pulling away, his fingers brushing through Wyatt’s hair as he went, going back into his hotel room and closing the door behind him.

Wyatt sagged against the wall. Fuck.


	5. In Which Flynn is Horrible at Going Undercover

Lucy’s head hurt like a bitch the next morning.

Flynn didn’t say anything, but his sympathetic smirk spoke volumes as he silently handed her an Advil and glass of water.

She blinked in surprise when she saw that food had been sent up for them. “Did you order this?”

Flynn picked up the note that came with it. He read it, made a choking sound that might have been his attempt at stifling laughter, and then silently passed it to her.

_If your hangover’s as bad as the furniture crashing around last night, I suspect you’ll need this. Always worked for me. ~ Wyatt_

“He’s not supposed to be contacting us,” Flynn grumbled. “How did it take a combined task force to capture this guy? He’s begging to be caught.”

Lucy bit her lip to hide her amused smile as she looked at the food. Well, she might as well try Wyatt’s hangover cure. If she threw up later, so be it. Maybe she’d get lucky and do it on Cahill’s loafers.

Flynn went around the apartment muttering to himself as she ate, mostly things about ‘Cowboy’ and ‘Logan’ and ‘idiocy’ and ‘utter lack of professionalism’.

Lucy suspected that if she asked Wyatt he’d say rather the same things about Flynn.

Her hands shook a little as she applied her makeup in the bathroom. So she was just meeting her biological father for the first time and pretending to be happy about it and pretending to be marrying Flynn in order to find her mother and hopefully rescue her from the clutches of Rittenhouse and hope that her mother wouldn’t be a bitch about it.

No big deal.

Flynn went to get them a car while she got dressed, probably embarrassed to spend too much time alone with her. She couldn’t for the life of her remember what had gone down other than something about dancing, swaying to music—and tackling Flynn, but that had to be a weird dream. Why would she even try to tackle a guy twice her size?

When she got downstairs, the sunlight leapt out of nowhere and tried to mug her. Lucy jammed her sunglasses on her head and put her hand up for good measure. Goddamn why did it have to be bright out? What was wrong with darkness? And _silence_ , for the love of God, everything was so loud.

Flynn was leaning against the car, smirking at her and clearly delighting in her situation. “Having trouble, Miss Preston?”

Lucy glared at him. “I’m fine.”

“Mmm. I enjoyed last night, personally.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she grouched.

“It means you were a very… gentle and responsive lover.”

Lucy could feel her jaw dropping open. “I—that—we—I wasn’t that drunk.”

Flynn’s face practically transformed as a wide smile spread across it and he covered his eyes, struggling to hold in his laughter (and failing). “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

Lucy punched him in the shoulder. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

“You did try to wrestle me, though.” Flynn looked absolutely delighted at her, his eyes all lit up and that soft smile still in place. It made her heart do a dangerous little flip. “It’s good that we get to know each other a little better.”

“By letting me wrestle you while I’m drunk.”

Flynn shrugged. “I like my women strong.”

Lucy rolled her eyes and tried to shove past him. “Laugh it up.”

He pulled his hands out of his pockets, both of them curled into fists. “Hey, that was a compliment.” He shook his heads, an eyebrow raising. “Maybe I got you a present.”

She really hated that she thought this was adorable as fuck. “Oh?”

Flynn held out his hands, shaking first one and then the other. He was actually—playing with her, dared she say, indicating each fist in turn, teasing her with his facial expressions over which one it was. It was like seeing the man he had been, a man who could tease his wife and play with his daughter, before—all the rest.

Lucy rolled her eyes for the sake of appearances but she was curious in spite of herself…

She tapped the left fist.

Flynn’s hand opened—it was empty.

Great. Funny. Ha ha.

Flynn stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Hey.” He opened his other hand. Inside his palm nested a beautiful art nouveau style ring, the black pearl a centerpiece.

“I didn’t think you were a diamond sort of girl,” Flynn admitted, and his voice was low and intimate and if Lucy didn’t know any better she’d think they really were engaged.

“You thought right.” She’d always liked pearls better, and colored stones like aquamarine.

Flynn went to slide the ring onto her finger, but she retracted her hand. “Bump the brakes. I just had my ring stolen last night.”

“But any good fiancé would have run out first thing in the morning while you were sleeping and gotten you a new one.”

…dammit he’d done that, hadn’t he, he couldn’t just have had a spare fancy ring like this on hand. His eyes crinkled up at the corners when he smiled, Lucy realized.

Flynn slid the ring onto her finger. “Congratulations. We’re engaged. Again.”

The joke fell just a little flat when he said it in that soft voice. It made her wonder how she could've ever genuinely considered tackling him.

And then he smirked at her and nope, she was back to wanting to tackle him. And bang his head into some furniture. Just a little.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt woke up to the stupid fucking goddamn piece of shit alarm.

Maybe he was being a little unfair to the alarm—it was just doing its job, after all—but Jesus tap dancing Christ on a cracker he hated mornings.

He reached over, trying to find the button that turned it off. His hands worked down the back of the clock, and he felt—

Wait.

Was that clock loose?

He sat up straight, taking out the back of the clock.

…oh that mother fucker.

Fifteen minutes later, dressed for the day and feeling petty, Wyatt knocked on Flynn and Lucy’s door.

Flynn opened it and jumped about a mile when he saw Wyatt there. “You can’t be here!”

Wyatt ignored him, tossing him the first bug. “These.” Tossed him the second. “Are.” Toss. “Russian.” Toss. “Made.” He walked over and dropped the rest into Flynn’s hand. “Putting one in the lining of my jacket was a nice touch.”

Flynn stared at him for a moment, then held up a finger. “One moment.”

He closed the door.

About ten seconds later he opened it again. “I’d wondered how you heard the racket from two floors above us,” he said, producing a handful of the bugs that Wyatt had put all over Flynn’s room. He started tossing them at him. “These. Are. American. Made.” He handed Wyatt the rest. “And very low tech.”

Wyatt wanted to ki—slap the smirk off Flynn’s face. “That tie doesn’t go with that shirt,” he said instead, and walked away.

 

* * *

 

Flynn tried to keep his cool as he walked with Lucy on his arm to the racetrack. Nicholas Keynes was apparently bitter about missing out on the whole Second World War thing and was a bit of an adrenaline junkie, zooming around the track, racing yachts, all the rest. Flynn wanted to show the rich, pretentious douchenozzle what actual life and death situations were, but he doubted the KGB, the CIA, or—most importantly—Lucy would approve of that.

He could feel Lucy getting stiffer and stiffer as they approached the man who, pictures had told him, was Benjamin Cahill. Figuring they were supposed to be engaged so it was only natural, Flynn took her hand, squeezing it.

Lucy squeezed back, but her shoulders relaxed a little.

“Lucy!” Cahill looked beyond pleased to see her.

“Father.” Butter wouldn’t have melted in Lucy’s mouth as she smiled and let Cahill hug her. She was a natural actress.

Cahill turned to Flynn, smiling and shaking his hand. “I owe you a debt, sir, however did you manage to get her out?”

“I was being sent here to study the architecture,” Flynn replied. “And I asked if I could get permission to make this our honeymoon as well.”

“So how did you two meet?” Cahill’s eyes were cold and glittering.

Flynn felt panic creeping up his throat. He and Lucy hadn’t discussed that. “Well, it started when I was called in to make improvements on the wall. My car was rear-ended…”

“…because you’d parked it in the wrong spot,” Lucy pointed out.

“And that’s how I met the most expensive mechanic in Berlin.”

“And the best.”

“And the best,” Flynn agreed, smiling down at her.

Lucy smiled back, squeezing his hand again, and the urge to kiss her was like fire in his lungs. It felt natural, this back and forth between them.

“So did you just design the wall or build it himself?” Cahill asked.

Flynn tried to swallow down the annoyance building in his chest. “Excuse me?”

“You’re built like a horse,” Cahill replied, laughing.

“Father please, be nice,” Lucy chided.

“I’m sorry, Lucy, but you must admit I’m surprised. Your mother would have raised you to be a good German girl. One who knows the value of bloodlines.”

…what. The fuck.

He was seriously having to deal with this Nazi eugenics bullshit?

“Father, you must know I don’t believe in that.”

“You should, Lucy, you are the product of two very powerful families. You’re a thoroughbred. You don’t mix a purebred stallion with a cart horse.”

“I love Flynn and I’m marrying him, and I had hoped you would support that. We’ve only just met, I don’t want to quarrel over this.”

He knew it was fake, that it was a lie, but Lucy saying those words made the entire world tilt, a dangerous thing when his anger was building like a countdown in his head. Lucy squeezed his hand unbearably tightly.

“I was hoping to meet you and to find out if you knew where Mother was,” Lucy added. “Her daughter is getting married, after all. I want her to be there.”

Cahill sighed. “Perhaps we should talk. Father and daughter.”

“There’s nothing you can say to me that you can’t say to Flynn.”

“No, please, excuse me,” Flynn said, stepping away. If he had to spend another moment with that bastard he was going to do something he regretted.

He couldn’t help but wonder from the challenging way that Cahill looked at him if that hadn’t been Cahill’s intention.

“Father…” Lucy chided Cahill again as Flynn walked away. He hoped he was doing the right thing, leaving her alone with that—that man, but he had to get some air.

He went into the bathroom to try and cool down—only to find three poncy Italian idiots sitting on the sinks and fixing their hair while they gossiped.

“Excuse me,” Flynn said, in English. No reason for them to know that he spoke Italian and therefore knew they were talking about how Ricky had been fucking the pool boy and how Marianna was terribly upset about it didn’t you know she actually had never guessed the poor stupid girl…

The three men paused, looking at him. Flynn gestured at the sinks. “Do you mind?”

“Do _you_ mind? We’re busy,” one of the men said, and then they started talking about something with the cars on the racetrack and how Keynes was such an ass, which, well, Flynn could agree with them on that one, but fuck if he was going to let three spoiled asinine rich boys get away with rude behavior like that.

He walked over and closed the bathroom door, locking it.

The three men turned and looked at him, confused.

Flynn cracked his knuckles. This would be fun. And therapeutic.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt got to the party at the racetracks a bit after Flynn and Lucy did. He saw them talking with Cahill—and noticed that Flynn had changed his tie, which did stupid things to Wyatt’s stomach—and then bumped straight into one of the other guests, some uptight Brit.

“Sorry,” Wyatt mumbled, brushing past.

The guy’s invitation, which he’d pickpocketed out of the man’s breast jacket pocket—that he tucked away for now.

The party was in full swing, everyone dressed to the nines, pictures of Keynes’ father with the original tiny fishing boat that started the whole shipping company, _La Nave Madre_ , in proud display.

He couldn’t see Keynes, which made sense since the guy was probably racing around on the track. His wife, though, where was the former Miss Whitmore…

A security guy tapped him on the shoulder. “Can I see your invitation, sir?”

“Oh, of course.” Wyatt reached for his jacket pocket and pretended he couldn’t feel it. “Say, did I leave it in the Jag…”

“I’m going to have to ask you to come with me, sir,” the security man said. He grabbed Wyatt’s arm and Wyatt purposefully yanked himself back too hard to escape the grip, hitting one of the displays and knocking it over. The security guy grabbed for him and Wyatt managed to deal him an elbow blow that looked like an accident.

The security guy, responding the way Wyatt thought he would, punched him in the face.

Wyatt could’ve stayed standing, but let himself collapse onto the floor.

“What is going on?” came an imperious and icy woman’s voice, all the more terrifying for how calm it was.

Everyone looked—and Wyatt did mean everyone, a considerable crowd had gathered—to see Emma Whitmore Keynes striding towards them in a dark green dress, looking like a queen about to order ‘off with their heads’.

Wyatt pulled out his invitation, fanning himself. “I can’t imagine what they do to people without invitations,” he told the very pretty girl on his left.

“But—but he—” the security guard looked completely at a loss.

Emma’s eyes sparked. She knew his game, as Wyatt had thought she might. “Go on,” she said, waving at the guard to move along. She reached out a hand to help him up.

Wyatt took it, staggering slightly, and took her watch, slipping it into his pocket.

“I distinctly remember not issuing you an invitation,” Emma told him, taking his arm and forcing him to walk along with her. “So, who are you?”

“Jesse Moore, I’m an art dealer. I specialize in getting those… one or two extra little pieces to finish off collections. The ones that are rather hard to get through normal means.”

“That’s a rather fancy name for a thief.”

“I prefer the term ‘expert in acquisitions’.”

Emma chuckled. “You’re quick on your feet. What brings you here? Not stealing from me, I hope?”

“Nothing that stupid.” Just lying to her and betraying her and hopefully arresting her. “Your art collection is rather impressive. I was wondering if you might want to hire me.”

“Ah. Well that depends, how good are you at your job?”

“Well, how much time do you have?”

Emma went to check her watch—and stopped, seeing her bare wrist. She looked up at Wyatt. “Give it back.”

He took the watch out of his pocket, handing it over graciously. “Just a taste of my talents.”

“You have me intrigued,” Emma admitted. “I’ll have my secretary contact you to set up an appointment to discuss how you can help me round out my collection.”

Wyatt gave her his hotel and room number and decided that today had been successful.

He just hoped Flynn was keeping his temper in check.

 

* * *

 

Cahill took her down to the racetrack to meet Keynes and his wife—the notorious Emma. Lucy’s heart was pitter pattering in her chest. This was the woman keeping her mother hostage. The one person standing between Lucy and freedom.

“Emma, this is my long-lost daughter Lucy.”

“Ah, the famous Lucy.” Emma shook her hand. “I’d’ve thought you were a princess from the way your father talks about you.”

A car roared to a stop next to them and Nicholas Keynes jumped out, yelling in Italian at one of his mechanics.

“What is he saying?” Lucy asked. Other than German and English, her only language was French.

“He wants the car to go faster,” Cahill said, sounding a combination of amused, bored, and annoyed.

Well. She could handle that.

She walked over to the car and popped the hood, taking a look at the engine. “Did you disable it here and check for size and flow?” she asked, turning to the mechanic.

He glared at her. “You think you can do a better job?”

“Yes,” she replied. If there was one thing Carol Preston had taught her, it was speak up when you were good at something.

Keynes looked over at her as well. “You’re a mechanic.”

“The best.”

He gestured at the car. “All right. Show me what you can do.”

Flynn’s face when he walked over and saw her up to her elbows in car grease was fantastic.

Noticing that his knuckles were now scraped and bruised was less fantastic.

“Darling, we should go,” he told her, taking her by the wrist. Lucy ignored the flutter in her stomach at the word _darling_.

“What did you _do_?” she hissed.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t you ‘nothing’ me Garcia Flynn…”

“I can see why they’re engaged,” Emma noticed with a smirk.

“We need to go,” Lucy said apologetically. “I should get cleaned up. I’ll see you soon, Father? Lovely to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Keynes.”

The three of them watched like hawks as Lucy let Flynn lead her away.

 

* * *

 

“He did _what_?” Lucy snapped.

Wyatt winced. “Had a little fun with three Italian boys in the restroom.” Lucy raised her eyebrow at him for the phrasing but Wyatt couldn't resist, not when it might rile up Flynn. Teasing the guy was just way too much fun.

“They had it coming,” Flynn yelled from the other side of the door. He’d turned half of his hotel room with Lucy into a darkroom and was developing film from some pictures he’d taken at the party.

“Doesn’t matter if they had it coming, one of them is Italian nobility, a count or something!” Wyatt replied. “And I hear from the lovely Miss Preston here that you were rude to the Keynes!”

“They’re assholes, it’s not my job to make nice to them, that’s your job, and Cahill was talking to Lucy like she was marrying below her station or something—”

“You know we’re not really getting married, right?” Lucy shot at him, her words cracking like gunfire.

Flynn yanked open the door wide enough to stick his head out. “For the purposes of this mission, we are engaged. As far as your father knows, we are engaged. So yes, I think I have a right to be upset when he insinuates that you’re sullying your precious bloodline by marrying me.”

Wyatt didn’t see why Lucy would be, quote, sullying her bloodline. Had Cahill _seen_ Flynn? Those two would have gorgeous babies together.

Not that Wyatt—never mind.

Flynn slammed the door shut again and Lucy rolled her eyes. “He’s impossible,” she told Wyatt.

“I’ve noticed.” He raised his voice. “Nice tie there, Flynn.”

“Very funny Cowboy.”

“What, you don’t want to admit I had a good fashion idea?”

“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”

“How are you holding up?” Wyatt asked Lucy.

“So-so. Cahill is… a lot. I can imagine Emma’s a lot as well.”

“I’m more worried about Flynn. You’d think he’d never been on an undercover mission before.”

Lucy patted the seat next to her and Wyatt sank down, Lucy pressed up against his side, warm and reassuring.

“Did he really think you shouldn’t marry Flynn?” he asked.

Lucy laughed a little. “He turned it into a horse metaphor. He should be congratulating me, the man’s a disaster but in the looks department…”

Wyatt’s heart sank a little. He hadn’t even realized how much he liked Lucy until this moment, realizing she didn’t want him. At the same time, though—he couldn’t blame her. Not at all. Flynn was—ah. Well. Wyatt could see from a completely objective viewpoint how a woman might find Flynn attractive. Just from an objective, outsider, definitely not attracted to Flynn viewpoint. Ahem.

Lucy settled against him, her head resting on his shoulder. “How much longer are you going to be in there?” she called.

Flynn yanked the door open, a photograph in hand, then did a fantastic wide-eyed double take as he saw Lucy and Wyatt basically cuddling on the couch. “Ah…”

Lucy patted her other side. “Room for you if you want.”

Flynn looked like he was being throttled. “Logan. Look at this,” he spluttered, walking over and staying standing as he handed Wyatt the photograph.

Wyatt stared at it. It was a picture of Emma’s arms and hands… but they were glowing. “Why are her hands doing that?”

“This camera detects radiation residue. She’s been in contact with a massive amount of it lately.”

Wyatt’s head shot up to look at Flynn. “They’re further along in the process than we thought.”

Flynn nodded. “We have to check out their facilities.”

“I’ll go change.”

“…are you two seriously going to leave me here?” Lucy’s tone was annoyed but her face told a completely different story, her eyes dark and cheeks pale.

Wyatt wrapped his arm around her shoulders instinctively, before he could think about what he was doing or stop himself. Fuck, he was so screwed when it came to her. “You’ll be perfectly safe here. We’ll be back before you even know we’re gone.”

Lucy looked up at Flynn. “You’ll be careful?”

Flynn nodded.

Lucy’s gaze sharpened, her eyes boring into him. “Can I trust you on that?”

Flynn paused, then nodded once more. There was something so final, so solemn in his movement, that if Wyatt had been in any doubt about Flynn’s feelings for Lucy, it vanished like smoke in that instant.

Looked like he and Flynn were both suckers.

Lucy looked like she wanted to reach out to Flynn, to touch him in some way, but Flynn was already walking away, presumably to go change as well.

Wyatt cleared his throat and stood up. “Hate how he keeps retreating, then?” he asked.

Lucy looked up at him through her lashes, smirking. “But I love to watch him walk away.”

Wyatt just about choked. Flynn’s ass was—uh—he had tailored pants on, that was all.

Lucy stood up, placing her hand on his chest. “Keep an eye on each other,” she said softly.

Wyatt nodded. He didn’t think he’d be able to deny her anything. And, well, their bosses would be upset if Flynn didn’t come back alive. Top KGB agent and all that. “Sure thing, Lucy.”

She smiled at him, soft and warm as sunshine.

Oh, he was so fucked.


	6. In Which the Boys Reach New Heights of Messiness

Flynn stared in honest disbelief as Wyatt pulled out a little set of wire cutters. He’d cut the lights so the security floodlights were off, or would be until the backup generator kicked in, giving them a temporary cover of darkness.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

They were crouched in front of the fence that led to the Keynes Shipping Headquarters, dressed suitably in black clothing that was easy to move around in.

Wyatt held up his little wire cutters. “Sharpened them with a CO2 laser.”

Flynn gently moved Wyatt to the side and began burning through the fence. Wyatt gaped at him. “What’s that?”

Flynn held up the device and winked at him. “CO2 laser.”

Wyatt made one of those little strangled noises but moved aside so that Flynn could yank the two parts of the fence apart for the two of them to slide through.

“We’ll have to break in through the side door,” Wyatt whispered. “It’s a dual lock.”

“I’ll take top.”

“I’ve got bottom.”

Right after he said it Wyatt’s face went bright pink. Flynn decided to tactfully ignore that.

Flynn got out his lockpicking device—his damn boss had made him take it—but he couldn’t get the damn thing into the lock. Why couldn’t he just blowtorch the thing?

Wyatt finished with his lock and shouldered Flynn aside. “Here.”

Flynn leaned back to try and see where the guard was, then nearly leaned back to far, grabbing onto Wyatt’s hip for balance.

…given that Wyatt was bent over a little in front of him, that was probably unfortunate hand placement.

Wyatt jerked a little in surprise but finished his task, standing up and opening the door, pressing himself back into Flynn as he did so.

Flynn closed his eyes and prayed for death, just a little bit. What was it with the two people he was trying desperately _not_ to be attracted to finding moments to press their annoyingly fit bodies all up against him?

He was only human, god dammit.

Wyatt got the door open and pulled away, slipping inside. Flynn followed, closing the door behind them and turning on his flashlight.

It was dark in the massive warehouse, the only lights those from the guards as they swept their large flashlights back and forth.

“We need to hurry,” Flynn whispered. “The power should come back on in—”

The lights all flickered back to life.

Wyatt looked at him. “You were saying?”

“—they must have upped the kick-in time from the backup generator.”

“Loving your work, Peril.”

Flynn rolled his eyes, then grabbed Wyatt and yanked him back, pressing Wyatt into the wall as a guard walked past them. Wyatt’s face went bright pink again. The guard spoke in Italian as he walked by, something about how these systems were bullshit and it was just a false alarm again.

Flynn let go of Wyatt, who actually hadn’t been breathing, oddly enough. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Wyatt whispered, his voice rough. “Totally, great, over here.”

He didn’t sound all that great, but then Flynn was trying to focus on both the guard and on ignoring the whole ‘solidly built guy who definitely worked out a lot and smelled like coffee and the cinnamon hotel shampoo’ who’d just been pressed against him. Again.

Ignoring Wyatt’s continued mutterings, Flynn followed the guy. If nothing else, he could lead them to—

Wait was that his mother’s watch?

On the guy’s wrist, there. Flynn would’ve thought the guy who took said watch would’ve kept it, but maybe he handed it over to another Rittenhouse guy as a gift or something. It was a woman’s watch originally, after all, and Flynn said fuck gender roles in jewelry and accessories but not everyone felt the same way.

Flynn crept silently up behind, following the guy up the steps. Wyatt had gotten a hold of himself and realized that Flynn was following said guard, and was now following Flynn and hissing at him to cut it out.

They got up the steps to the second floor, and the guard—still bitching—went into a kind of changing room. He opened one of the lockers, his back to the door.

Flynn got right up behind him, placing his palm in the air just to the left of the guy’s face, and then one… two… three…

Smacked the guard on the other side, knocking him out while keeping him standing upright. It had to be done perfectly so that the guard was in his natural standing alignment, and the smack created the sonic pressure needed to knock the guy out without being too gentle or too rough.

“What!?” Wyatt whispered. His eyes were like saucers and he was staring at Flynn like he was about to—um—Flynn didn’t let himself think about that. “What the fuck was that?”

“It’s called ‘The Kiss’. Takes years to perfect. He’s out cold.”

Wyatt made a desperate noise in the back of his throat, one that shot straight down Flynn’s spine. Flynn stared at him. Was Wyatt…?

Wyatt was looking away from Flynn, though, at the locker. Flynn supposed he might have been imagining it, then. Wyatt clearly had a thing for Lucy, and Flynn was an unfortunate bastard who had a thing for both of them but most people weren’t like… well, they weren’t like that. If he thought he heard desire in Wyatt’s voice it was probably his own ridiculous imagination, the part of him that wanted Wyatt to want him, that wanted to take all the frustration Wyatt gave him and push it back onto him in the most primal way possible, to get Wyatt to give into him and submit to him, to beg for him.

Flynn shoved those thoughts away and locked them firmly in the Do Not Disturb drawer in the back of his mind. He hadn’t thought about anyone since Lorena, wrapped up in revenge and work. Why did now, of all times, have to be the moment he started thinking about not one but two of his coworkers in horribly intimate and inappropriate ways?

“Hey,” Wyatt whispered. He jerked his chin at the locker. “Why would a shipping company have radioactive-safe gear in the employee lockers?”

Flynn turned.

Sure enough, there was a HAZMAT suit, a breathing apparatus, the whole nine yards.

He reached up to grab the suit—and the hook it was on wiggled.

He pressed down on it firmly, and the hook lowered, a soft _click_ sounding.

The wall to the right of the lockers slid open, revealing a doorway with steps leading down into darkness.

Flynn pointed. “We wouldn’t have found that without my mother’s watch.”

“I’m—that’s—you—” Wyatt spluttered.

Flynn turned his flashlight back on and descended.

 

* * *

 

Almost immediately after the boys left, the phone rang. “Hello?”

“Ah, Lucy?”

“Father.” Lucy hated the way her face stretched around a fake smile to put fake happiness in her voice.

“I was hoping I could apologize to your fiancé for my behavior earlier…”

“I’m sorry, Father, he’s in the shower. But I’ll pass that on to him.”

“Ah, no worries. I wondered, are you free tomorrow? I wanted to take you to a proper lunch at the Keynes estate in the country. It’s absolutely gorgeous.”

“Would Mr. Keynes be there?”

“Yes, he’s quite anxious to get to know the little mechanic better.”

Lucy swallowed down her thoughts on ‘little mechanic’ and where Keynes could stuff phrases like that. “I’d love it. Noon?”

“Perfect. I’ll send a car. Goodnight, my dear.”

“Goodnight, Father.”

She hung up, her heart leaping into her throat.

She had a private meeting.

Lucy picked up the hotel phone again, dialing the lobby. “Yes, connect me to Room 236, please?”

There was a pause, and then the other person picked up. Lucy’s legs nearly buckled in relief. She felt almost lightheaded, and had to sit down. “I’m in.”

“Good. And the men?”

“Off infiltrating the headquarters. Probably being, ah, less than subtle while they do it.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to sleep with them.”

There was a long pause over at the other end of the phone. “Miss Preston… you know that’s not, ah, required, no matter what those books by Mr. Fleming might suggest.”

“No, I know. I’m gonna.”

“That’s up to your discretion. And you’re certain that things will go according to plan?”

Lucy took a deep breath. “I’ll make sure they do.”

“I know you will. You’ve done well so far, Miss Preston. Shall I have my erstwhile assistant turn off the bugs for you?”

“He’s welcome to keep them on but I didn’t peg him for the voyeur type.”

“I’ll let him know to take the night off. Glad to hear at least one of us is enjoying this cock up of a situation. Good luck, Miss Preston. Everything will go fine tomorrow if you keep your head. Chin up, deep breaths, and think of Amy.”

The line went dead.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt followed Flynn down the steps. It didn’t take them long to reach their destination: the steps ended in a small concrete room in front of a gigantic safe room door.

One that Wyatt recognized.

“This,” he informed Flynn, taking out his thief tools and handing a few to the (much annoyed) Flynn to hold, “is a Swiss-built Vaultbender Bruhl 7010 Model.”

“Fascinating,” Flynn said dryly.

Wyatt found the hidden operating panel and popped it open, putting the lid in Flynn’s hands. Flynn glared at him.

“Very difficult to open, but it’s not impossible.” Wyatt put on his listening device, one end in his ear with the other against the door, and began to work the dial. Almost, almost, almost… there.

He stepped back, feeling a rush of pride as the door unlocked and the tumblers slid into place. Flynn had to be a little impressed with him now.

Not that he wanted to impress Flynn or anything, at least, he just—he wanted Flynn to respect him as a partner, that was all. Any guy would want that.

“The problem is,” he said, unable to resist showing off just a little as he spun the wheel to open the door, “the people who invented this model were not very good at stealing things.” He went over and grabbed the edge of the door handle, turning and smirking at Flynn. “I, however, am.”

He dragged the door open, stopping in front of Flynn.

Flynn did not, to Wyatt’s intense disappointment, look impressed. “Did you disable the alarm?”

“The 7010 doesn’t have an alarm.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow and looked like he was about to say something—and an alarm started to go off, red lights flashing, a horn sounding.

Flynn blew out a breath of laughter. “Oh, yes, loving your work, Cowboy.”

Wyatt clenched his jaw, darting into the safe while he heard Flynn drawing his gun.

There was nothing in the room—but there had been, and it was highly radioactive, going by Wyatt’s pocket Geiger counter. Fuck, the bomb or the parts for it had been stored in here, and recently.

A glint of metal on the floor caught his eye. A piece of forgotten equipment.

Wyatt snatched it up.

“Logan, time to go,” Flynn called, trying to keep his voice from carrying too far.

Wyatt hurried out again, tucking the equipment into his coat. He could ask Flynn what it was later. Up above them he could hear shouts and running feet. Dammit. So much for subtlety. Agent Christopher was going to kill him.

The managed to get up out of the hidden room no problem, but immediately a bullet winged off the lockers right by Flynn’s head and Wyatt’s heart just about stopped. “They’re covering the exits!” Flynn growled, apparently completely unconcerned for his personal safety.

“Get down, Peril, Jesus!” Another bullet flew by way too close to Wyatt’s head for his personal liking.

They ran down to the first floor, firing back, trying to save their bullets. Wyatt hadn’t expected a firefight and had only brought one extra clip.

“What do we do?”

Flynn grabbed him and yanked him behind Flynn’s larger frame. Wyatt’s heart felt like it was beating out of his chest as they crouched down, Flynn firmly in front of him, his hand clenched in Wyatt’s jacket. “You gotta stop manhandling me, Flynn.” _Or I’m going to die._

“Shh.” Flynn looked behind Wyatt. “This way.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m getting out of here, Cowboy, you going to join or not?”

Wyatt ran after Flynn, and nearly skidded to a halt when he saw what the guy was doing. “Are you fucking insane?”

Flynn ignored him, picked up speed—and fired at one of the glass windows twice to weaken it just before he leapt straight through out onto the docks below, landing in a shower of glass shards.

And then just kept going. Because he was a goddamn superhuman or something.

Why, why, _why_ did he have to find that so hot? Why?

Wyatt couldn’t follow him—but he couldn’t be caught, either, and the guards were right behind them.

Cursing Flynn, God, the universe, and his own stupidity, Wyatt leapt after Flynn.

He landed in a soft roll, the impact spread across his back and shoulder diagonally so it didn’t hit hard on just his legs or one part of his spine. Still hurt like a bitch, though. Flynn was already ahead of him, starting up a speedboat.

Wyatt jumped in after him. “We’re not going to make it, they’ll close the gates!” Already he could see some guards getting into another boat to chase them.

“Just shut up and watch me work, all right Logan?”

Wyatt lurched and grabbed onto the handrail at the last moment. “Flynn, are you sure?”

Flynn didn’t respond, apparently too focused on wheeling the boat around like a maniac. Jesus, what the fuck did the guy—

Flynn spun the wheel and the boat turned viciously to the side. Wyatt stumbled, tried to fix his balance—and fell into the water.

He surfaced immediately. Flynn hadn’t noticed he was gone, still running around in that damn boat, the guards after him now with searchlights and guns.

Damn Croatian shitweasel.

Wyatt swam to the shore, where there were several cars parked. Easy enough to break into one—he could hotwire it and get back to the hotel in no time.

He picked a dark green pickup, got in—oh, lovely keys were up in the sun visor. Helpful. He started it up, rubbing his arms and hands to try and get warm. The heater blasted on, some sad Italian love song coming on through the radio.

Oh, thank God, there was a napkin on the passenger seat. Wyatt grabbed it and wiped at his face…

Hey there.

Underneath the napkin was a picnic basket with—oh hell yes, a sandwich and some wine, God bless the Italians.

Wyatt looked back at the water and saw that, somehow, in the minute or two he’d been distracted Flynn had managed to set both his and the guard’s boat on fire.

Impressive, almost, in its sheer level of insanity.

Wyatt started eating the sandwich—what, he was starving—as Flynn and the other boat chased one another up and down the water. Honestly, what the hell was the guy thinking?

Wyatt finished off the sandwhich, took a few sips of wine, and looked to see if there was anything more… ooh, grapes… and heard a disturbing noise.

He looked up.

Flynn’s boat was sinking.

Oh, fuck.

Wyatt crouched down, watching as the guard boat circled once, twice, then left, apparently satisfied they’d killed their quarry.

He waited, watching—Flynn was unbelievably, annoyingly strong, surely he was all right, surely he was just holding his breath and waiting—

Flynn didn’t surface.

“Fuck me,” Wyatt said out loud.

Shit, how was he supposed to find Flynn in all that dark water? His dinky little flashlight wouldn’t do crap, not unless…

Wyatt looked down at the car. The car _with massive headlights_.

He jammed the keys into the ignition and turned the car on, switching on the headlights.

Dammit, Flynn better fucking appreciate this.

He rolled up the windows, took off the parking break, took a deep breath out of instinct and floored it.

The car roared forward, sailing off the dock and into the water. He was engulfed in the dark almost before he knew it, and he had to fight instinctive panic. He thought, oddly, of what Lucy had told him on the plane—how she’d been trapped in a car that plunged into the river.

Good thing she wasn’t here for this.

The car’s headlights pierced the darkness, illuminating a world of dark blues and greens. There, floating like a rag doll, was Flynn. His head was slumped, his arms stretched upwards like he’d been trying to swim.

Wyatt’s heart leapt into his throat. He rolled down the window, freezing water pouring in, and wiggled out. He only had so much time—the car would sink further and so would the headlights, and he wouldn’t be able to see Flynn anymore.

He swam over, shaking with cold, wrapping his arms around Flynn’s waist and hauling him up to the surface. Thank God for buoyancy, Wyatt never would’ve been able to carry Flynn out of the water.

They broke the surface and Wyatt got behind Flynn, using the Heimlich maneuver to push the water out of Flynn’s lungs. Flynn coughed and spluttered.

“Quiet,” Wyatt hissed. The guards could still be looking for them.

Flynn kept coughing but said nothing, letting Wyatt help undo his jacket and shoes, trying to get Flynn as light as possible so Wyatt could swim-drag him over to the side. Fuck the guy was heavy. “What’d you eat for breakfast, cement?”

Flynn choked out something in a language Wyatt didn’t recognize but he was pretty damn sure meant ‘fuck you’. Wyatt grabbed the rails of one of the ladders that sank into the water, and Flynn’s fingers fumbled, catching on.

They hung there for a minute as Flynn caught his breath. Flynn kept hacking, the saltwater probably stinging his lungs and throat. Wyatt patted his back awkwardly. “Hey, hey, you’re okay.”

Flynn looked at him, water dripping from his hair and nose. “You’re shivering,” he said nonsensically, reaching up and pushing Wyatt’s soaked hair back from where it had been plastered to his forehead.

Wyatt hadn’t even realized. Flynn’s hand was freezing against his skin but he didn’t care, he wanted to turn his face into Flynn’s touch, to press his lips to Flynn’s palm and feel the pulse underneath, the proof that Flynn was alive. “We should get out then,” he blurted instead.

Flynn’s hand dropped away and he nodded, gesturing for Wyatt to climb out. Wyatt did so, then reached back down to help yank Flynn up.

They collapsed onto the ground, sucking in air, shaking with cold. “You okay?” Wyatt asked. “You took in a lot of water.”

Flynn nodded. “We have to get back. Lucy—and the Keynes, they might—suspect you—you’re the only stranger in their midst, the only one not vouched for.”

True. Flynn’s annoying behavior at the party could be put down to being insulted by Lucy’s father and feeling out of his element. Wyatt had strolled in there and literally told Emma that he was a liar and a thief, and he’d given her no way of verifying his identity through papers. She had to be suspicious.

He helped Flynn to his feet. They had to get back to the city, and much more quickly than they’d gotten here.

Wyatt spied a vehicle and he could feel his spirits lifting. He looked at Flynn, grinning.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Flynn growled softly.

Two minutes later they were whipping down the street in one of those nifty little scooters.

 

* * *

 

Emma was enjoying a nice stiff drink before bed as she went over accounts when the phone rang. Probably Dr. Preston asking for more time or something like that. Honestly, the woman was insufferable. Nicholas was inclined to be lenient with her, since they were distantly related in some way, but then, Nicky had always been a little bit of an idiot. Inclined to think up big plans that amounted to nothing and making decisions with his dick.

She’d stopped pretending to want to sleep with him six months into the marriage, and they’d enjoyed an open relationship ever since. She needed someone with at least half a brain to join her in bed.

“ _Buonasera_ ,” she spoke into the phone.

A break in? At the headquarters?

Emma mentally flipped through the list of people it could be, people who would want to do her family harm. This wasn’t sabotage, apparently they’d gotten all the way into the safe, which meant they’d been looking for that safe, which meant they knew about Rittenhouse, which meant—

The American. Jesse Moore.

Emma dialed the number for the hotel name he’d given her. “Hello, this is Emma Keynes.” They’d know who she was. “Can you call Mr. Moore’s room for me? On the sixth floor, I believe.”

There was a pause of about two minutes, and then the receptionist came back on the line. “I’m sorry madam, there’s no answer.”

“No worries, you have a pleasant evening.” She hung up and went to get dressed. Jesse Moore better be in his room, and he better have an explanation as to why he hadn’t answered his phone, or there’d be hell to pay.

 

* * *

 

This stupid ridiculous little excuse for a motorbike could barely fit both him and Wyatt, and they literally lurched to a stop at the side of the hotel. It also didn’t help that thanks to weight distribution, Flynn was behind Wyatt, holding him by the hips and trying with all his might not to think about how well Wyatt fit in the cradle of Flynn’s body.

Wyatt peered around the corner and whipped his head back so fast that he nearly smashed it into Flynn’s nose. “Emma’s here!”

Fuck. “In the side door, go, go.”

They darted past behind Emma’s back as she had reception call up to Wyatt’s room, taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Wyatt’s room was on the higher floor and he had to spring as Flynn reached his, slamming the door open and scrambling under the bed for the listening device he’d hidden there.

“What—Flynn—what the hell?” Lucy demanded.

“Emma’s suspicious of Wyatt, we set off an alarm, she thinks he’s responsible.”

“What is that?”

“He didn’t find the bugs I put in his shoes, I can listen in on their conversation.”

A sly look slid into Lucy’s eyes. “Could you also, ah, use a pair of eyes on him?”

“I can’t go up there…” Flynn’s voice died away as Lucy reached into the closet and pulled out a goddamn maid’s costume. “Where’d you get that?”

“Stole it from an employee room in the laundry basement, there were some spares. Shall I go check on Madam?” This last sentence was spoken in a flawless French accent.

Flynn just about swallowed his tongue. “Um, yes, ah, sure yes okay.”

He turned away as Lucy changed, focusing on tuning into the radio frequency of the bug.

He hoped Wyatt was better at thinking on his feet than he was at disabling safe alarms.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt dashed into his room, closed the door, ran into the bathroom, yanked off his wet, clinging clothes, threw on a bathrobe, threw said wet clothes into the laundry hamper, and grabbed a toothbrush just as there was a knock at the door.

He waited until he heard the door being jimmied open before he flushed the toilet and walked out—putting on his best surprised face.

“…Mrs. Keynes,” he said, stopping.

He watched Emma take in his wet hair, his bathrobe, and the toothbrush in his mouth. “I did call,” she noted.

“Oh, was that you? Thought I heard the phone—figured the person would call back in the morning.” He gave her an affable smile. “What can I do for you?”

“I—it doesn’t matter now. Next time, when your phone rings, Mr. Moore, answer it.”

“Yes, certainly.”

Emma gave him a cold onceover and then turned and walked back out the door.

Wyatt slumped onto the couch, his heart racing ferociously. Fucking close call. Fuck.

 

* * *

 

Lucy looked very fetching in her maid’s outfit, if she did say so herself. “ _Qu’est-ce que tu penses?_ ”

Flynn didn’t even look at her. “So long as nobody looks at your face, that’s what matters.”

God dammit. She’d thought all men had a thing for maid outfits. Ugh, why must the man be so difficult?

Well, she had gotten this outfit for a reason and as much as she wanted that reason to be having Flynn fuck her ‘til she screamed, the real reason was just in case of a situation like this.

She double-checked herself in the mirror and left Flynn to his eavesdropping as she took the elevator to the sixth floor. She skirted around the corner and hid just as she heard Wyatt’s door opening and Emma emerging.

Lucy peered around the corner. Emma didn’t even look her way as she walked to the elevator.

Looked like Wyatt was either dead (unlikely, he’d have put up a hell of a fight so she doubted Emma killed him unless she used a gun and Lucy would’ve heard that) or had gotten out all right.

And if it was the latter…

Well, Flynn was still listening two floors down, wasn’t he?

She was about to put her life on the line, it was late, she was wired, and she hadn’t had sex in over a year.

_Carpe diem._

Lucy knocked on Wyatt’s door.


	7. In Which Wyatt and Lucy Try to Seduce Flynn and It Goes about as Poorly as One Would Imagine

When Wyatt heard the knock at his door he expected Emma to have changed her mind and decided to shoot him just to be on the safe side.

But it wasn’t Emma waiting for him on the other side of the door.

It was Lucy.

“What?” Given that he’d been coming down to their hotel room willy-nilly this whole time, he probably shouldn’t be surprised that the situation was no reversed, but it was.

Especially considering that Lucy was in a maid’s costume.

Was she _trying_ to get his dick to fall off from sheer sexual frustration?

“What are you doing here?” he whispered.

Lucy crossed right past him into the room. Wyatt closed the door behind her, still absolutely lost. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

Lucy walked over, whispered, “talk quietly,” and kissed him.

Wyatt couldn’t pretend that getting thoroughly kissed by Lucy wasn’t something he’d been thinking about since he’d walked into her mechanic’s shop, but the timing was definitely suspicious. He pulled back. “What are you doing?”

Lucy sighed and started undoing his bathrobe, like explaining this to him was a chore. “Look. You like Flynn.”

“I do no—”

“I don’t have time for your sexuality crisis, Wyatt. You want to fuck him. I want to fuck him. Neither of us is getting anywhere by flirting with him. Am I on the right track?”

“Um…”

“That’s what I thought. So.” Lucy shoved the robe off him and then started undoing the buttons on her outfit. “He’s downstairs right now, thinking you’re, I don’t know, seducing Emma or something—”

“—I do have some standards—”

“—and he’s setting up his earphones or whatever because you didn’t find all the bugs he put in this room.” Lucy dropped her shirt to the floor and Wyatt choked on his own tongue. “So, since blatantly flirting with him didn’t work, how about we try something else?” Lucy paused, as if another thought had just occurred to her. “Oh, and I would like to have sex with you anyway, so it all works out.”

Wyatt was starting to think that this woman should either be put in charge of the CIA or never put in charge of anything ever because she was kind of terrifying him but it was also, annoyingly, turning him on.

There was the small matter of Flynn being, well, male, and Wyatt hadn’t ever let himself think about men that way, but—but this whole thing was insane, wasn’t it? And Lucy didn’t seem to mind, quite the opposite in fact. Maybe… maybe he could let himself not think about why he wanted something, or if it was okay to want it, at least just for a little while. Maybe he could tuck that shame away and think only about what he wanted, and how could it would be to have it.

“So what do you say?” Lucy took off her skirt, too. “We have fantastic sex, he has to listen in, and hopefully we can finally get him to join us.”

An absolutely gorgeous and whip smart woman that he’d been kind of fantasizing about for a week was asking him to have sex with her so that they could convince their equally gorgeous teammate that Wyatt had wanted to bend him over since they’d met to join them.

…sometimes life was very, very good to him.

“I like how you think.”

“I thought you might,” Lucy smirked, and then she basically tackled him onto the bed.

 

* * *

 

Flynn finished tuning the damn earpiece and sat on the couch. Hopefully Wyatt had a good excuse in hand, one that Emma believed—hopefully he wouldn’t be tuning in to deafening silence, or Emma coldly ordering one of her men to dispose of the body. The thought sent an awful thrill of fear through him, one he hadn’t felt since losing Lorena and Iris.

But Wyatt wasn’t like them. Wyatt actually had a chance, he’d been a soldier who’d survived the war, and a thief who’d evaded capture by several governments, and now a spy who, despite his abysmal cockup of getting Lucy, had yet to be captured behind the Iron Curtain.

He had to be okay. He just had to be.

Flynn really didn’t like the idea of Lucy going up on her own, either, but getting eyes on the situation would be useful and he certainly couldn’t be seen up there. So long as Emma didn’t get a good look at Lucy’s face…

He listened for sounds of arguing, fighting, maybe even pain, but instead he heard…

Was that?

Wyatt gave a little moan—it had to be Wyatt, it was too deep to be a woman’s—was Wyatt fucking making out with Emma?

What the _fuck_?

 

 

* * *

 

Wyatt was very, very pleased with this situation and he had no intention of moving ever. Lucy was straddling him, her hands in his hair, her weight keeping him grounded, making him feel present, in the moment, unable to drift away.

She tore her mouth away, kissing up along to his ear. “Tell me what you want, Wyatt.” Her fingers danced down his chest, to his cock, stroking lightly. His hips lurched upwards. Fuck.

“I can’t give you want you want until you tell me,” she told him. Her voice was light, sweet, but brooked no argument. Wyatt practically melted.

“You know, I thought you might be like this,” Lucy mused, her mouth lingering down his neck as his hands roamed over her curves, greedy, trying to find an anchor in her. “You like being told what to do, don’t you?”

Wyatt swallowed. He did, as Jess had figured out. He nodded.

“Use your words, Wyatt.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” His hips bucked up as she twisted her wrist. “Now, tell me what you want.”

“I want you to fuck me.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn’s heart just about stopped.

They were quiet, but—but he could swear that was Lucy with Wyatt.

The mental image planted itself in his brain before he could stop it and his mouth went dry. The two of them naked, in bed, limbs entangled, moving, thrusting…

He felt an insane surge of jealousy that he wasn’t there to watch, to touch, to be included.

Jesus he’d lost his mind.

 

 

* * *

 

“Louder,” Lucy whispered, her mouth directly in his ear, making him shiver all over. “Don’t you want Flynn to hear you? Hmm? Want him to know exactly what you want, how to fuck you? You want him to fuck you, you want him to be here too.”

Wyatt was clawing at her back as she teased him, stroking him and guiding him along the outside of her, so that he could feel how wet she was, feel her warmth, but wasn’t inside of her. God, she was right, in this bed just the two of them he could ignore everything else and just admit, just give in and say yes to what it was that he craved.

“Please,” he let himself get louder, let himself ignore and throw away those last shreds of shame. “Please, I want—I want you to fuck me.”

“How?”

“Any way you want, please, Lucy.”

“And why do you want it any way I want?” she asked lightly, her voice louder now—loud enough that Flynn had to be able to hear it.

Shame tried to burn again in his chest but he shoved it away. “Because… because I like it when you tell me what to do. I like when I’m told what to do, I like being pushed around a little.”

“Too bad I can’t do that,” Lucy mused. “If only we knew someone big enough to do the job.”

Flynn had to be choking on his own spit downstairs, he had to be—unless he’d stopped listening because he didn’t care.

Wyatt tried to ignore that thought. Lucy, focus on Lucy, focus on being good for her.

“But you’ll just have to do with my orders for now. So hands above your head, soldier boy.”

Wyatt placed his hands up above his head as instructed, grasping the pillows. Lucy made a pleased noise, almost like a purr, and just when he thought she’d finally take him inside her, she just settled herself down more firmly on him and began to touch herself.

A whine worked its way out of his throat. Lucy shook her head. “No, you’re going to be good and wait.”

He tightened his hold on the pillows, signaling that he’d be good. Oh, he’d be so very good. Lucy kissed him as a reward, then cried out as she slid two fingers into herself.

He had a pretty big suspicion that Lucy wasn’t normally this loud and was doing it for Flynn’s benefit.

“God, my fingers just aren’t—long enough,” Lucy said, and Wyatt almost burst out laughing because honestly she couldn’t have been more obvious if she’d held up a neon sign that said PLEASE FUCK ME FLYNN.

“Gonna have to get someone to do that for you next time,” he replied, playing along. The idea of watching Flynn finger her open, getting her to whimper and moan… oh, fuck yes.

Lucy raised herself up, and then slowly, never breaking eye contact, lowered herself down onto him.

Wyatt just about died. No, he was pretty sure he had died, holy shit.

Lucy settled herself, her mouth falling open on a sharp inhale, her eyelids fluttering. “Been a while?” Wyatt mumbled.

She nodded, a self-conscious smile twisting up one corner of her mouth.

“Hey, me too,” he told her. He hadn’t been with anyone since Jess.

Lucy had a moment more of vulnerability, he could see it in her eyes, and then slyness slid back into place. “Well then, guess we’ll have to make sure this is all that you want.” She bent over him, starting to move her hips in shallow little rolls. Wyatt couldn’t have stopped his groan if he’d tried. “Tell me what you want, Wyatt.”

 

* * *

 

“I—I want—I wish you could hold me down, too, I want to be held down.”

Flynn didn’t think he’d ever been this turned on in his life, the idea of holding Wyatt down to a bed or a wall and watching Lucy fuck him, slow and commanding or fast and passionate, branding itself into his mind. He pressed the heel of his hand between his legs but that didn’t do shit to calm the desperation in his veins.

“If we had a second person,” Lucy said, “we could manage it.”

Wyatt sounded like he’d just about choked. “We—that’s—ah—um—a thing?”

“Mmm, well hey, the more the merrier,” Lucy replied.

Flynn just about dropped the device. Was she—she didn’t mean—

Another woman, right? She had to mean that, Wyatt was straight, or at least as far as Flynn knew and it was difficult as hell to figure out if a guy wasn’t without getting a black eye for it.

“You want someone to fuck you good and proper?” Lucy asked. Flynn sank back into the couch, his breaths sharp and burning, his free hand clenching into a fist. “We could—ah, ah—get you a good strong guy, take care of you properly, get you to scream?”

What the hell was this?

“Too bad that someone’s not here. You’ll have to make do with me.” Lucy’s voice was becoming breathier, little gasps and sighs working their way in between her words. She sounded like she was steadily working herself close to orgasm. Flynn wanted to watch, not just hear, but he also wanted to be Wyatt, he wanted to have Lucy telling him what to do and using him to make herself lose her mind—and he also wanted to be Lucy, ordering Wyatt around, fucking him until Wyatt was moaning for him as desperately as he was currently moaning for Lucy.

He wanted it all.

Had Lucy noticed that he looked at her? That he wanted her? Was this a fuck you, a way of telling him she’d go to Wyatt for what she wanted and for him to keep his eyes and the rest of himself away from her?

It was all moaning and gasping now, and he burned with shame inside and out from continuing to listen to it. Lucy might’ve wanted him to turn it off, she might have thought he was a gentleman and would do the right thing, and here he was listening in and struggling not to get off to it.

Lucy cried out, and then a few grunts later he heard Wyatt give a desperate whine, and then there was just the sound of them catching their breaths.

Well. Sounded like they’d enjoyed themselves.

Flynn couldn’t even identify what he was feeling. Jealousy, envy, want, shame, helplessness, confusion, all of it churned inside his chest like a maelstrom.

He yanked the device off and went into the bathroom to take a cold shower.

 

* * *

 

Lucy sighed. Flynn hadn’t taken the goddamn building-sized hints and joined them. Maybe he’d turned off the device when he’d heard Emma leave or when he’d heard them start to go at it. It would be just like him, wouldn’t it, to be a gentleman at the exact moment she didn’t want him to be.

She was sitting up in bed, having hopped in the shower with Wyatt for a lovely little clean up that had involved some making out and casual groping, and Wyatt now had his head in her lap so that she could pet his hair.

It was a pity that she’d never see him again when they got out of this mess. If any of them got out of it. She’d love to really get into things with him, see, for instance, how well he followed orders, if he could hold back from orgasm until she said, if he liked being tied down.

“Lucy?”

“Hmm?”

Wyatt sounded scared. “Is it really… can you really tell that… does everyone… does Flynn know I like him?”

She didn’t stop petting his hair, trying to formulate a response. “I think it’s obvious. But Flynn couldn’t even tell that we wanted him to join us, so I don’t know if he’s seen it. And nobody else has seen you two interact the way I have.”

“What if he’s noticed and he’s not, y’know, he’s not—” Wyatt mumbled something that she couldn’t catch.

“Repeat that?”

“Broken.”

Lucy froze, then looked down at Wyatt. “You think this means you’re broken?”

Wyatt swallowed several times before he spoke. “Things like that—you can’t be that way.”

“Who says?”

“Everybody knows it, Luce.”

“Oscar Wilde was gay. Alexander the Great was gay. Richard the Lionheart liked men and women. People say that Josephine Baker likes men and women. The list goes on.”

“You’re a history professor now?”

She pinched him on the shoulder. “I want to go to college in America, when I get there. Study history.”

“I hope you get there, Lucy. I’ll do whatever I have to, to get you there.”

“I know you will.” She knew she shouldn’t, but she trusted him—him and Flynn both. “Wyatt, my point is, there will always be people who try to say it’s wrong. But some of the greatest people in the world, the greatest leaders, artists, they’ve been this way. We’re always going to be here, we’re always going to exist. And so I don’t see what’s so wrong about it. It’s not harming anyone, is it? To appreciate someone’s beauty, someone’s personality, to care for someone?

“We live in a world where—we might have to kill someone tomorrow. We have to lie, we have to steal, we have to cheat. We lose the people we love, we lose our homes… why waste our time worrying about it when we find someone who makes us happy?”

Wyatt blinked rapidly, his chest heaving a little. “Yeah,” he croaked out, his voice rough. “When you put it that way…”

“I do put it that way. You’re not broken, Wyatt. You’re you, and that’s more than good enough.”

She held him until he fell asleep, and then snuck back down to her room. Flynn was a large lump on his bed, apparently asleep as well.

Lucy crept up to him. His breathing was deep and even, his face relaxed, eyes closed. If he was faking, he was doing a very good job of it.

She bent down, bracing her hand on the bedpost, ready to brush her lips to his cheek…

But what if he had heard? What if he had and he hadn’t come up not because he didn’t understand, but because he wanted nothing to do with them? What if he was still in love with Lorena, his wife, and didn’t want anyone else?

She pulled away and climbed into her own bed. It was only a twin, but it felt impossibly big and cold.

 

* * *

 

Flynn woke up to someone crying.

He rolled over, thinking sleepily that Iris had a nightmare—and then his brain caught up with him and he remembered where he was.

He sat up.

Lucy was asleep, curled up into a little ball, crying through a nightmare.

Fuck.

He hesitated for a moment, unsure, but… but he couldn’t just leave her like that.

Flynn got up quietly, lifting Lucy and sliding underneath her. The twin bed gave him just enough room to settle her on his chest, in his arms.

Lucy cried a little longer, giving occasional whimpers of fear or pain, but once he really settled his arms around her and started whispering to her she began to quiet down.

“You’re safe,” he told her, petting her hair. “Shh, _draga_ , you’re safe.”

Lucy settled, her limbs relaxing, her breathing deepening and evening out. Flynn knew he should get up now and go back to his own bed, but what if she had another nightmare?

He felt weak for it, but he couldn’t bear to leave her.

He drifted back to sleep with his arms around her, Lucy a warm weight on his chest.


	8. In Which Lucy Does What She Has To

Lucy woke up feeling safe for the first time in years.

She’d had the usual nightmare—trapped in the car again, water all around her, no way to get out. Noah had only gotten sicker from getting her out, and part of her would always blame herself for that.

But then the nightmare had faded away. She’d felt warm, held, protected.

Now that she was awake she knew why. Someone was holding her, her head tucked under their chin, their chest moving up and down underneath her as they breathed.

She opened her eyes.

It was Flynn.

How—had she crawled into bed with him in a nightmare-fueled haze and forgotten about it? But no, she was still in her bed, the one on the left side of the room.

He’d crawled into her bed. He must’ve heard her, she knew she sometimes made noises during her nightmares—and he’d held her all night.

Lucy ducked her head down as a surge of emotion rose up and nearly choked her. Maybe she’d miscalculated, last night. She’d been trying to be sexy, to tease and have fun, and maybe it wasn’t Flynn rejecting her and Wyatt so much as being a thickheaded idiot who needed her to look him in the eye and let herself tell the full truth, for once, for the first time in her whole life.

Maybe he just needed her to say that she wanted him.

The idea terrified her. She could be wrong, terribly wrong. But surely he didn’t crawl into just anyone’s bed and comfort them.

Lucy dared to raise her head and watch him as he slept. Just her luck to fall for two such ridiculous men, in this way, at this point in her life.

She glanced at the clock. They had to get up soon. But for now...

Lucy rested her chin on his chest. For now she could savor this.

 

* * *

 

Waking up the next morning was awkward, seeing as he woke up to two big brown eyes staring down at him as Lucy, having woken up just a moment before, looked at him with this unreadable and yet unbearably soft look in her eyes.

“You had a nightmare,” he told her, feeling all kinds of lame even as the words left his mouth.

“Oh,” she said, her voice odd.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head. “My father called while you were out. He wants to meet me today for lunch. At the Keynes’ private estate. I think he’ll tell me where my mother is.”

“Then we’ll need to hook you up to a wire.”

Lucy nodded. She reached out, her finger lightly tracing his nose. Flynn tried valiantly to will down his morning erection and to not think about how soft and warm Lucy was in his arms.

“We should tell Logan,” he said, his voice rough from sleep. “I thought you would’ve slept over at his last night.”

“And leave you all alone?” she replied, her voice soft.

God, she was gazing at him with this hopeful look in her eyes, and he couldn’t be a hundred percent sure but he wanted to take the risk… he pushed himself up, just enough so that he could start to lean in, and Lucy started leaning back…

There was a knock at the door. “Room service!” said someone who was definitely not a bellhop and definitely Wyatt Logan.

Goddammit.

“I’ll let him in before someone sees him,” Lucy whispered, giving Flynn an adorable, mischievous look before sliding out of bed and walking over to the door.

Wyatt came inside and Lucy explained the situation while Flynn got dressed in the bathroom and cursed his existence. Did Wyatt know Flynn had been listening to them last night? What would he say, what would he even think?

But when he walked out, Lucy was in the dark red dress that Flynn remembered picking out for her, the one with the shoulder cape. Her hair and makeup were done properly this time, and she was sliding on a pair of little red kitten heels to go with it.

God damn, she was a vision.

“It’s not working,” she said.

Wyatt rolled his eyes. “Ask Flynn, he’s the expert.”

“Where’s it transmitting from?” Flynn asked.

Lucy tapped a spot very, ah, very high up on her thigh.

“You put bugs in our room,” Flynn pointed out to Wyatt. “You know technology.”

“You said my bugs were ‘very low tech’,” Wyatt replied, standing up and holding his hands in a gesture of surrender.

Lucy stood up on the coffee table. “Well, one of you is checking this,” she said, ostensibly addressing both of them but her eyes boring directly into Flynn’s.

Wyatt gave a _your funeral_ look to Flynn and walked out onto the balcony.

He walked over to her, trying not to show his panic as Lucy lifted her skirt a little and he slid his fingers up her leg. He wanted to press his lips to her skin, to slide his fingers all the way up, to pull her down off the table and on top of him.

“What are you doing down there?” Lucy asked, a dangerous tease in her voice.

“Trying not to get lost,” Flynn replied, falling back on snark because it was the only defense left to him.

He felt the device—and realized she hadn’t turned it on. “There we go.”

He paused, pressing his hands to her leg to feel her properly as he realized… “You’re trembling.”

“That’s because I’m scared,” Lucy replied, frank in an attempt at bravado that couldn’t hide the slight crack in her voice.

“You don’t have to be,” he replied. “I’ll be there, I’ll be right there.” He tapped the device. “I’ll hear everything.”

“What if they find it and take it? Take me?”

“They won’t.” He’d never let that happen—especially because he’d made sure it couldn’t happen.

The reason he’d chosen a black pearl for Lucy’s engagement ring was because the black hid the bug he’d put in it. The pearl was a fake. If they took Lucy somewhere, he’d track her, just like he’d track Wyatt from the bugs in the heels of his shoes.

Neither of them would disappear on him.

“You can’t promise that,” Lucy whispered. With the coffee table giving her an extra foot, she was now an inch taller than he was.

“I can and I do,” he told her.

Lucy leaned down ever so slowly, her eyes hooded, her lips slightly parted. Flynn sucked in a breath. He wasn’t imagining it, she did want to kiss him—she hadn’t been teasing him last night, she’d been honest, knowing he was listening, she did want both of them—he leaned in, knowing it was stupid to get his wires crossed like this but already so compromised and wanting to kiss her at least once before he had to send her into danger—

“All turned on?” Wyatt asked as he walked back in.

Lucy gave Wyatt a look that stopped him dead in his tracks. “What?” he squeaked out, rightfully terrified.

They should get going, though. Flynn put his hands on Lucy’s waist without even thinking about it and lifted her down from the coffee table. “You’ll be late to your appointment with Mrs. Keynes,” he warned Wyatt.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.” Wyatt winked at him. Flynn glared in response, reaching out to fix Wyatt’s skewed tie.

Wyatt immediately went pink. “Stay on your toes, Cowboy,” Flynn warned him. The moment they got complacent was the moment they slipped up.

“Should say the same to you, Peril,” Wyatt replied.

Flynn stepped back, looking at the two of them. Both about to go alone into the lion’s den.

He’d be lucky if he got through this day without a heart attack.

 

* * *

 

The Keynes estate was lovely, Lucy could give them that. It was also in the middle of nowhere, which was insanely intimidating, but she knew that a meeting in the city wouldn't be any safer. It would only give the illusion of it.

At least Flynn was out there, listening. Lucy wanted to scream at him to run, that if he was caught there'd be no saving either of them, but she knew he'd stay. The way he'd looked at her earlier, the way he'd held her all night... of course he'd stay.

She rubbed her engagement ring absently as followed her father out to the patio, where Nicholas Keynes was sitting and having some cheese and crackers.

“Ah, Miss Preston.” He smiled at her. “Lovely to see you again.”

She smiled back at him, finally letting some of the steel show instead of just the sweetness. This was it. The moment she’d spent two years preparing for. It wasn’t happening the way that she’d thought, but that was all right. She’d make it work.

She had to make it work.

And she had to pray that everyone acted the way she thought they would.

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we, Mr. Keynes? I know that you have my mother.”

Nicholas looked at Cahill, who seemed surprised but undaunted. “And what makes you say that, my dear?” Cahill asked.

“Simple. My fiancé? A KGB spy. And the supposed art thief that your wife has been entertaining is CIA. They took me from Berlin and forced me to work for them to get to you and stop you.”

She tapped her left ring finger against the table, restless, nervous.

“In fact, I think my dear fiancé’s listening in now. Probably in the bushes.” She inclined her head over to where she knew Flynn was hiding.

“If you’re fast enough, you might even catch him.” She raised her eyebrow at Nicholas, then looked at Cahill. “They tried to play me. So I’m playing them. Have I earned your trust, now? Will you take me to my mother?”

Cahill coughed. “I have to make a phone call. Nicholas?”

Nicholas gave a surprised laugh. “You really are something, Miss Preston. Yes. Yes, we’ll take you to your mother. You just might be the jump she needs to finish her little project for us.”

Lucy could feel her legs trembling again. _"You’re trembling." "That’s because I’m scared."_

Think of Amy. Think of university, of freedom, of everything she’d ever wanted.

It was such a bitter pill, really, that she didn’t want most of those things anymore.

 

* * *

 

Flynn stared through the bushes as Lucy literally, and without hesitation, handed Wyatt and himself in to Keynes and Cahill on a silver platter.

What—what the _fuck_.

“In fact, I think my dear fiancé’s listening in now. Probably in the bushes.” He could hear the soft static as her ring finger tapped against the table, slightly distorting the feed.

Flynn rolled his eyes in sheer exasperation, then started shoving his listening equipment into his bag.

If he sprinted, he’d just make it over the wall that surrounded the property before the dogs got to him.

Flynn took off running, his legs and lungs burning, and tried very, very hard not to think about who he was leaving behind.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt was ushered into Emma’s office by a subdued secretary. Emma was on the phone with someone, speaking in a businesslike tone.

She leaned away from the mouthpiece when she saw Wyatt. “Help yourself to a drink,” she whispered, then went back to scolding someone in Italian.

Wyatt helped himself to a scotch and sat down, taking a couple drinks as he took in the view of the docks.

Ah, the docks he’d been swimming in just last night. Fun.

You know what else was fun? How the room was starting to feel fuzzy.

He heard Emma hang up the phone and tried to stand up, but his body wasn’t really cooperating. “You know, a suspicious man would say that you laced his drink. But I don’t know how you’d know I’d go for the scotch.”

Emma walked over, taking the glass from his hand. “I didn’t know. I laced all the drinks. Unlike my husband I tend to be a thorough planner.”

“Huh.” Might as well make himself comfortable. Wyatt reclined back on the couch. “I’m trying to think where I went wrong.”

“Oh, you did quite well,” Emma assured him. “But you couldn’t control Miss Preston’s loyalties. She gave you up like an unwanted kitten.”

That felt like a stab in the gut. Lucy—Lucy had given them up? But she—he’d—he trusted her, he—he _loved_ her, he—

Everything distorted and then went black.

 

* * *

 

Flynn shoved everything into the car, started it, and slammed his foot on the accelerator.

He had no doubt that the phone call Cahill went to make was to Emma about Wyatt. Even now Wyatt would be walking into a trap and he had no idea.

He had to get to him before those bastards did anything to him.

Lucy. She’d handed them over, knowing that Wyatt would be caught, knowing Flynn probably would, too, knowing they’d be tortured for this. No quick bullet to the head for either of them, oh no, Rittenhouse would want to know how much their respective agencies knew and how the CIA and KGB had, of all organizations, decided to band together.

He got out the tracking device and put it to the frequency for Wyatt’s bugs. Looked like he was already on the move, or at least the people in charge of him were. Was he conscious? Did he know that Lucy had betrayed them? Was he scared?

Flynn’s heart steadily climbed up into his throat as he kept the car at full throttle, probably daring a police officer to pull him over for speeding but who gave a fuck on these country backroads anyway.

He’d thought he was a sucker. No, he knew he was a sucker. He’d known he was falling too hard, too fast, caught up in the spell that was Lucy Preston. But he hadn’t ever thought—he’d slipped, he’d become complacent, because he had never once thought that maybe, just maybe, this woman that he knew for a fact was whip smart and wanted only one thing—her sister—would play him.

And she had. She’d played him and Wyatt but good. He hadn’t even seen it coming and he was certain that Wyatt hadn’t either.

He didn’t understand. He could still see Lucy’s face that morning when he’d woken up, the shy happiness on her face, the way she’d been shaking and had whispered that she was scared. How could that all have been a lie?

How could she have gotten him to fall in love with her in so short a time when she’d always been planning on leaving him out to hang?

Flynn swallowed down the sick, nauseous feeling in his throat, focusing on following the tracker to Wyatt. Ironic, he knew, that he realized he was in love with Lucy only when she betrayed him. Standing there hearing her give him up and thinking only, _but I love you_.

He was a fool of the highest order.

But he could focus on his broken heart later. He had to get to Wyatt, Wyatt who blushed easily and looked at him with wide eyes and who’d driven a car into a fucking dock to drag his sorry ass out of the water.

At least he could hang onto one person he cared about.


	9. In Which Flynn Literally Sets Things on Fire as Opposed to Just Metaphorically

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains detailed descriptions of torture by electric chair.

Wyatt came to in probably the one place no spy ever wanted to come to: tied to a chair in a dark room with just one lightbulb on overhead.

Actually, he doubted this was where most people wanted to come to.

“Ah, there he is.” Emma smiled at him, the cold, excited smile of a predator. “He’s all yours, Cahill.”

Wyatt blinked a few times, helping the room come into focus more as he spied Benjamin Cahill sitting in a chair across from him.

“While I’m sure you know him for his administration work during the war, Mr. Cahill here is also known by other names. My personal favorite is ‘The Fifth Horseman’,” Emma went on.

…fuck. Fuck, Wyatt knew that name. He’d heard about the guy from Bam Bam, one of the guys in his unit back in the day. Said that the guy would leave people gibbering wrecks, when he left them alive at all.

He tried to adopt a lazy smirk. “They couldn’t have been any more creative than that?”

Emma gave him a pitying look. “Quip all you want, Agent Logan. I’m afraid I can’t stay, as much as I love to see the master at work. I’ve got an appointment with your Miss Preston.”

Wyatt’s stomach churned. He wished he could just be angry with Lucy, and he was, but he also couldn’t stop loving her at the drop of a hat. He couldn’t stop himself from worrying about her and hoping she was all right.

But fuck, if he ever got out of this…

If.

This wasn’t the first time in his life that ‘if’ had been on the table but this was definitely the first time he’d felt completely helpless about it. His mind drifted over to Flynn. He’d been with Lucy, at the estate. Had they gotten him? Had he gotten away?

God, he hoped so. He hoped like mad that Flynn was safe and far, far away from here. But the possibility remained that he could be just on the other side of this wall, just one room over—or maybe in another facility—or, fuck, maybe they’d bring him in once they were done with Wyatt, once Cahill had finished slowly stripping the life from him.

He wanted to throw up. In a strange, twisted way, more than anything if Flynn had been taken he wanted Flynn to be in another facility altogether. He didn’t want Flynn’s last memory of him to be a corpse, even if he was still in doubt as to how much he mattered to Flynn. Lucy, sure, it was obvious Flynn was in love with her. But as for himself…

Maybe it was better, that he and Flynn never got to talk about the apparently obvious feelings Wyatt had for him. He was a coward and wasn’t sure how he’d handle the rejection.

“Perhaps you’d like a momentary demonstration?” Cahill asked Emma.

“Please, that would be lovely,” she replied, as if Cahill had asked her if she’d like sugar in her coffee.

Cahill pressed down on a foot pedal next to the chair—and nothing happened.

“Ah, we’ve been having a glitch.” He got up to check the wiring.

“I keep telling you, you need to modernize.”

“I’m an old-fashioned man, Emma.”

Emma rolled her eyes.

The wires must have connected properly, because suddenly a jolt of agonizing electric pain shot through him. His hands clenched in the chair and his teeth clacked together as his jaw locked. He didn’t scream, wouldn’t scream, but fuck he knew he was going to if this kept up, if it if it if it if it—

“We have contact,” Emma announced. Her voice sounded at once sharp and distant. His lungs burned, he couldn’t seem to remember how to breathe, pain, nothing he’d been trained for, all the tricks to block it out were gone—

It stopped and Wyatt’s chest heaved as he coughed. Something wet dripped down into his lips and he tasted iron.

Blood, he was bleeding from the nose. From somewhere. He ached all over, his hands shaking, his vision blurred.

He wondered, stupidly, if this was the kind of pain that Jess had been in when she’d died.

Emma gave Wyatt a once over, as if to make sure there wasn’t anything she’d forgotten, and then swept out the door.

And it was just him and Cahill.

 

* * *

 

They had him in the basement of one of the Keynes shipping company buildings.

Flynn parked the car a bit of a ways off and took the rest of the way on foot, his gun tucked into the small of his back. The place wasn’t exactly crawling with guards, just a skeleton team, but he couldn’t afford to make a big splashy entrance when they had Wyatt. The first sign of trouble and they’d either put a bullet in Wyatt or use him as bait or collateral.

He crouched in the shadows until he had the rotation of the two guards on watch memorized, then snuck up behind one and put him in a headlock, holding until the man stopped breathing.

And then kept holding. Just to be sure.

The second one he punched in the throat and then smothered, his hand over the guy’s nose and mouth.

Two down. Eight more to go.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t know where he was.

Someone was screaming and he knew from the burning in his throat that he was the one doing it but it didn’t feel like it was him. He felt disconnected, somehow, like his body was just some limp object and he was a separate being hooked up directly to the electricity, to the pain of it all.

He couldn’t think. He kept trying, kept desperately grasping for something to focus on, to keep himself from feeling it all but he couldn’t, he couldn’t he couldn’t—

It stopped, for a short bit. It always did. But it was going to come again and that was almost the worst part, knowing the pain would start up but not knowing exactly when. And even when the chair wasn’t on, his muscles were so cramped and sore, his head so heavy and dizzy, everything in him so frayed, that he couldn’t even really enjoy the reprieve.

Cahill seemed to think he was clever, monologuing on and on about how he’d been born for this, how naturally talented he was at giving others pain, about how everything in life boiled down to the motivation to stay away from pain, how human beings were ruled by fear, blah, blah, blah.

“Could you turn on the chair again?” Wyatt asked, spitting out some blood. He’d bitten his tongue pretty hard at one point and now all he could taste was iron. “I think your talking is worse.”

Hey, if he was going to die, he was going to do it while being as annoying as goddamn possible.

The pain started again.

 

* * *

 

Flynn got down to the basement level when he heard it.

A scream.

He’d heard a lot of screams in his life, unfortunately. Lorena’s scream when she found Iris’s body had been the worst, the one that haunted him even more than the ones of the men in the trenches.

But this scream was unlike any he’d heard before. He didn’t know someone could feel that much pain.

The worst part of all was that he knew who was screaming.

Flynn pulled out his gun. Fuck the finesse, he was shooting every single one of these bastards in the goddamn balls.

 

* * *

 

The part of Wyatt’s brain that was still active turned to the other part of his brain and informed him that, no offense, but it was time to accept the fact that he was going to die.

He wondered, idly, how angry Jess was going to be at him when she saw him again. Knowing her she’d have a laundry list of stupid things he’d done since she’d died that she was going to confront him about, not in the least of which was, “you got yourself caught by the goddamn CIA what the fuck did I teach you nothing Wyatt!?”

Cahill stopped the chair, and Wyatt coughed weakly. He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. Or his face, for that matter.

He cracked his eyes open, the room swimming back into painful focus. Cahill was writing down some notes in his… whatever he’d called it, Pain Bible or something equally stupid. Behind him, Wyatt could see the guard pacing up and down in front of the door. Convenient, how it had a little window so that Wyatt could see there was a guard, know that someone with a gun was just on the other side, and be unable to get said gun from them.

Wait holy shit.

He blinked, just to make sure he hadn’t hallucinated that. He wouldn’t put it past himself now, given that his body had passed the ‘seized up with pain’ phase and gone into the ‘limp noodle’ phase. His brain should start leaking out of his ears any moment now.

But no, he hadn’t hallucinated that. Someone had just taken out the guard.

A very tall someone.

“You’re doing remarkably well,” Cahill said as the door was silently eased open. “I’m impressed that you haven’t gone unconscious.”

Wyatt’s eyes slid closed, as if his body was finally going to pass out now that he knew he was safe. “I never thought I’d admit to this out loud… but I’m really, really glad to see you.”

Cahill stared at him for a moment—and then realized that Wyatt wasn’t talking to him.

He was talking to the six feet four inches of absolutely furious KGB spy behind him.

Cahill turned around, starting a little to see Flynn so close to him. Flynn’s eyes bore into Cahill, even as he addressed Wyatt. “You okay, Cowboy?”

“Peachy,” Wyatt replied, because he had a reputation to maintain and no way was he going to burst into tears of utter relief and exhaustion in front of Cahill. The slimy worm didn’t get that satisfaction.

Flynn hummed, clearly not satisfied with that response.

He got Wyatt out of the chair, not even needing to keep a gun on Cahill to keep the spineless bastard in line. Wyatt sagged against him as Flynn got him to standing, his body feeling like jelly. Flynn got an arm under his arms and around his back to support him, his other hand gently guiding Wyatt’s face, fingers warm on Wyatt’s cheek until Wyatt’s head was tipped against Flynn’s shoulder. Wyatt wanted to just bury himself in Flynn’s warmth, his scent, and pretend he hadn’t just felt his entire body on fire from the inside out, his teeth literally rattling with pain.

“You’re bleeding,” Flynn said quietly. His thumb brushed underneath Wyatt’s nose and came away red.

“I’ve had worse.” It was true, he’d had worse nosebleeds, but the thing that had caused this was definitely the most pain he’d ever been in.

 _Thank God you’re here_ , he wanted to say, as Flynn just held him, one eye on Cahill, until Wyatt could stand under his own power and his head stopped buzzing. Flynn’s hand never left his face, his body a solid support underneath Wyatt’s and his arm a protective band of iron around his middle, holding him up. It had to be exhausting, after Flynn had undoubtedly and single-handedly fought his way through God knew how many Rittenhouse men to get to him. But Flynn never moved. He just kept holding him.

Wyatt really, really didn’t mind. Standing here like this, ironic as it was given their specific location, was the closest thing he’d felt to home since Jess had died.

 _Fuck_ , Wyatt realized. _I’m in love with him._

Then he really did pass out.

 

* * *

 

Flynn wasn’t surprised that Wyatt finally gave up the ghost and slumped against him, out like a light. He pointed his gun at Cahill. “Help me get him into your chair.”

“Of course,” Cahill said quickly, assisting him in getting Wyatt into the chair. Fuck, fuck, fuck, Wyatt was pale as a sheet, a sickly yellow tint to his skin, his lips chapped, blood all in his mouth and dried against his chin, deep circles under his eyes. His fingernails looked like they’d started to bleed underneath a little, too, and his body was unnaturally warm, like he had a fever, the pads of his fingers and his ears and actually looking like he’d gotten burned.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Flynn used his gun on Cahill again. “Get in the chair.”

Cahill blanched. “I—I’m sure that’s unnecessary—”

He cocked the gun. “Get. In. The chair.”

Cahill sat in the chair.

Flynn had just gotten Wyatt out of these straps, so it was pretty easy to figure out how to use them to get Cahill nice and snug. He wouldn’t be sneaking out anywhere now.

Flynn set his gun down and grabbed a bucket of water that was sitting there. Probably to dump on Wyatt if he’d passed out. He found a rag and dipped it in the water, patting Wyatt’s face down, cooling him off.

Wyatt’s chest heaved and his eyes flew open, gasping. Flynn grabbed his shoulder. “Hey, hey, you’re all right. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Wyatt grabbed him, coughing, his fingers trembling where they gripped Flynn’s arm. Flynn squeezed the rag so that water fell into Wyatt’s mouth. He had to be careful not to put Wyatt’s body into shock by giving him too much of anything. “Easy there. Easy.”

Cahill, who clearly knew his life was on the line, politely remained quiet as Flynn helped Wyatt cool down and clean himself up. He still had a haunted look in his eyes and he moved stiffly, but he was able to stand after a few minutes and he still had most of his clothes on, except his jacket. Flynn wet the tips of his fingers and used them as an improvised comb to get Wyatt’s hair out of his face. Wyatt didn’t talk the whole time, just let Flynn help him, his eyes skittering around the room and then always drifting back to Flynn, staring at him like he couldn’t quite make himself believe that Flynn was actually there.

When Wyatt was finally on his feet again, Flynn turned to Cahill.

Time to figure out what to do with him.

“You don’t have to torture me to get me to talk,” Cahill said quickly. “I’ll go to court for you to give them up. I’ll cooperate.”

Wyatt snorted. “Figures you’d turn on them.”

How did this chair thing even work, anyway? What exactly had been done to Wyatt? Flynn hadn’t seen anything like this. Wyatt had no outside wounds, no cuts or incisions or injection marks…

Oh, there was a foot pedal. Huh.

Flynn stepped on it.

Cahill screamed a warning but it was too late—his body seized up, twitching and jerking, the vague smell of burning flesh starting up as he was—

He was being electrocuted.

The full realization of what he’d done to Wyatt hit Flynn like an iron pipe to the face. He whipped around to stare at Wyatt, feeling his eyes bugging out of his head.

Wyatt shrugged as if to say _that’s life._

The chair stopped. Flynn turned to glare at it. Why the hell had it stopped working?

“They’re having a glitch,” Wyatt explained.

“Then I’ll fix it,” Flynn growled. That bastard—that, that _creature_ , he wasn’t even worthy of being called human, he’d done this to Wyatt? Flynn calculated how long it had taken him to get to Wyatt once Wyatt’s tracker had stopped moving.

An hour. He’d been electrocuting Wyatt for an hour.

Flynn thought he might genuinely be sick.

“Ah. Okay. Hold on.” Wyatt grabbed Flynn’s elbow. “Can we talk outside?”

Flynn let Wyatt lead him out of the room, closing the door behind them. “I’m burning that bastard.”

“Okay, look, I don’t like it either, but if Agent Christopher finds out I got a hold of this guy and didn’t expedite him to the U.S. for questioning it’s going to be hell to pay. He’s a goldmine of information—he was one of the Nazis’ biggest torturers during the war.”

Flynn swore under his breath. “And Lucy’s related to that—that thing.”

 

* * *

 

Back in the room, Cahill tried to look over his shoulder to see what the two men were saying. His jerking movements, however, kicked the connection between the wires back on.

This wouldn’t have been a problem if Flynn had stepped on the foot pedal a second time, turning the chair off, but he hadn’t.

So the chair started up again.

 

* * *

 

“The problem,” Wyatt said, “is that if he testifies, he might be offered a job. A man like that’s never long for employment.”

“The CIA would do that?”

Wyatt gave him a _oh please_ look.

Flynn shrugged. “It’s up to you, Cowboy. You’re the one he’s been having fun with.”

Wyatt looked down, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Yeah, about that… how’d you find me?”

“Bugs in the heel of your shoe.”

Wyatt gave a small laugh. “That is… that’s probably supposed to be annoying and a little creepy but I’m so goddamn grateful it almost feels romantic.”

Flynn felt his face getting warm and quickly looked at a spot on the wall. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you.”

Wyatt made a wet, rasping noise, like he was going to cry but his body hadn’t built up enough fluids again yet to make that possible. “I thought I was dead, Garcia. You saved my life. You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

Flynn looked back at him and saw Wyatt looking at him with this expression of… well, of what he dared to call affection.

“Call us even,” he replied. “You saved my life back at the docks.”

“Jumping in after you is a little different from tracking me for… however long that was to get me out. You should’ve tracked Lucy, followed her to Dr. Preston. That’s the mission.”

“Fuck the mission,” Flynn burst out before he could stop himself.

Wyatt stared at him. “But—but your family. Getting back at Rittenhouse.”

Flynn shook his head. “Rittenhouse will still be there tomorrow. You might not have been.”

He and Wyatt had somehow gravitated closer as they spoke, until he realized he could feel the heat of Wyatt’s body, their faces only an inch or two apart. It would be so easy to lean in and—and the way Wyatt was looking at him, fuck, Flynn wanted, he _wanted_ —

Wait.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. He pressed the back of his hand to Wyatt’s forehead. “You feel wa…”

Hold on.

Wyatt wasn’t warm. Flynn was warm, his whole side felt unusually warm, and as a matter of fact one half of Wyatt’s face was oddly lit up by an orange light…

They both turned to peer through the window in the door—and saw that Cahill had caught fire.

“Huh,” Flynn observed. “He fixed the glitch.” That was probably his fault, honestly. He’d left the chair on.

“Damn.” Wyatt’s mouth twisted in annoyance. “I left my jacket in there.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt knew that it was kind of fucked up that he found it insanely attractive that Flynn had killed every guy in the building to get to him, but, c’mon, he’d thought he was going to die. He’d literally been thinking about what his dead wife was going to say to him when he saw her again. He figured he could cut himself some slack for being into not just guys, but a guy who murdered people and also accidentally set a man—and now the building—on fire.

“Do you think we should put it out?” Wyatt asked as Flynn led him to the car. His legs were still a bit wobbly at times and his mouth was perpetually dry.

Also he’d somehow gotten burns and those were hurting like a bitch.

Flynn looked back at the building. “…nah.”

He helped Wyatt into the car. “I look like shit, don’t I?” he asked.

Flynn looked at him and Wyatt’s breath caught. “You look alive,” he said, his voice rough.

Then he pulled away and got into the driver’s seat.

Jesus Christ, what kind of man had he fallen for, who just _said_ shit like that? It should be illegal.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt noticed the tracker the moment Flynn started up the car. “How’d you get a tracker on Lucy?”

“It’s in her ring.”

“Ah.” Wyatt nodded, swallowing. “Looks like she’s going out onto the water.”

“They must have a ship of some kind.”

“That would make sense—to conduct experiments on a ship, if shit goes wrong it’s somewhat contained.”

Flynn nodded, his jaw tight.

“Garcia.” Wyatt’s voice was quiet. “It’s okay. I—she fooled me, too.”

Flynn could hear the heartache in Wyatt’s voice and ached to reach out and wrap his arm around him or hold his hand. Of course Wyatt was in love with her too. It had been plain on the guy’s face. Even if Flynn hadn’t known they slept together, he would’ve seen it. The way Wyatt gave in so easily to Lucy’s orders, the way he begged her so nicely… if that wasn’t devotion then he didn’t know what was.

He pulled onto the road instead. “We need to get a helicopter.”

Wyatt glanced at him from the corner of his eye, then reached over and grabbed Flynn’s hand, squeezing tight.

Flynn squeezed back.

Lucy might have betrayed them, she might not care about them, but he cared about her. He wasn’t going to leave her at the mercy of people like the Keynes and their associates.

He was still going to fight for her. And dammit, he was still going to finish this mission and deal Rittenhouse a blow they’d never forget.

 

* * *

 

When Flynn learned that Wyatt didn’t speak Italian, he pulled over and made Wyatt drive while he called the airfield and negotiated a last-minute helicopter.

 “That got their attention,” Flynn said, hanging up the car phone after spending a good five minutes doing what sounded like threatening several people’s lives in Italian. Wyatt didn’t speak Italian—other than a few phrases—but he knew a death threat when he heard one.

He really wished that Flynn growling at someone about killing them wasn’t so hot.

“They’ll have a chopper ready?” Wyatt asked, turning sharply and getting them onto the airfield.

“Yes.”

When they got there, though, there wasn’t just a chopper.

There was a whole strike team, as well as two dark-skinned men standing and looking rather official. The first was bald, in his fifties, wearing a rather expensive suit, and looked vaguely familiar. The other was wearing a tweed coat and looked like a kid who’d been dragged out of bed to go to school in the morning.

Sensing more danger, Flynn shoved Wyatt behind him, his hand going for his gun.

“Who the fuck are you?” Wyatt demanded, peering around his overly protective partner-sort-of-boyfriend-person-whatever Flynn was to him now.

The man gave a put-upon sigh, and suddenly Wyatt remembered him.

He’d pickpocketed the guy at the Keynes’ party.

“I’m Connor Mason,” the man said. “This young gentleman here is my assistant, Rufus Carlin. And if you don’t mind, I’m taking over as your temporary boss because you two have royally cocked up my two-year operation.”

“…your what,” Wyatt said, when it looked like Flynn had decided he’d had enough shocks for one day and was just going to mentally shut down.

“Oh, yes, I suppose I should’ve said.” Mason gave a small smile. “I’m with British Intelligence. We’ve been working on the Keynes and Rittenhouse for about two years now, including preparing an agent for infiltration. But thanks to your little stunts at the party and the docks, said agent has had to improvise and is, to put it bluntly, in mortal danger. So, how about you two hop politely into that helicopter, where you can have a chat with your bosses, and we’ll lead a strike team onto the boat. Are we clear?”

“Agent?” Wyatt was baffled. “What agent?”

A look of horrible understanding crossed over Flynn’s face. “Lucy,” he said hoarsely. “Your agent is Lucy.”


	10. In Which the Shit and the Fan Have a Brief and Violent Meeting

Lucy kept her breathing steady as she flew with Nicholas to the large repurposed military ship. How the Keynes had gotten a hold of this, she didn’t know and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to know. She just had to focus on her mission.

Mason had gone over it with her dozens of times since she’d been recruited: get access to her mother and ensure that the plans to create a nuclear warhead failed. Mason had known—the British government had known—from the start that both America and Russia were going to want to get their hands on this stuff and England was frankly sick and tired of being the front line for world wars and didn’t think either country should put their grubby paws on this.

Lucy, personally, agreed.

So while she honestly had complicated feelings for her mother that she should probably see a professional about, she signed on for this mission, spent two years being coached in espionage, and sat back and waited for Russia or America to pick her up and send her packing to the Keynes.

She just hadn’t planned on Wyatt and Flynn.

In the literal sense, in that they’d both blown their covers spectacularly and there was no way she’d earn the Keynes’ trust without giving them up, but also metaphorically. She really, really hadn’t planned on falling in love.

Lucy shoved those thoughts away as the copter touched down. She had a job to do. Hopefully Wyatt and Flynn would be doing theirs and staying alive.

Nicholas helped her down and she saw Emma approaching with…

Carol Preston.

Her mother looked tired, older, but Lucy would have recognized that look of steel in her eyes anywhere.

“Lucy.” Carol smiled tentatively at her. “God, I’ve mi—”

Lucy slapped her.

Nicholas snorted in amusement and then let Emma lead him away, undoubtedly to talk more about their world-domination plans or whatever it was.

“Listen to me,” Lucy hissed. “I’m not here for moral support. I’m here to sabotage, and you’re going to let me. And then I’m going to England, and I’m meeting Amy, and I’m not all that sure I’m going to see you again. Are we clear?”

Carol looked stung. “I—yes, I understand, we’re clear.” She paused. “I do love you, Lucy. It was never—I planned to come back for you.”

“But you didn’t make the time to take me with you in the first place,” Lucy replied. “If I’d meant that much to you, you wouldn’t have left without me.”

Carol opened her mouth, closed it, then nodded. “I suppose we should… get down to business then.”

“Yes. Let’s.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn’s heart thundered in his chest. Lucy. Lucy was the agent, she hadn’t betrayed them for selfish ends, she’d been trapped in a corner.

She must’ve been terrified.

Mason nodded. “Yes. We contacted Miss Preston two years ago and recruited her, promised her entry to Oxford on a scholarship if she worked with us to take down Rittenhouse. Once she was settled in England the plan was for her to contact her sister and we’d install her as a desk agent like Rufus here.”

Rufus waved at them.

“We assumed that when her mother proved reluctant to continue her work that Cahill would show up in Berlin and get Lucy to her mother. And then you two showed up, dragged her to Italy, and we’ve been scrambling for a new plan ever since.”

“I don’t understand,” Wyatt said. “Why wouldn’t she warn us? Why turn us over? And why not—for her own safety, she should’ve told us.”

Flynn couldn’t help but laugh a little. Oh, Lucy was a genius. “She did warn us,” he told Wyatt. “And she knew we could get to her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When she gave us up, she said that her fiancé—me—was listening in the bushes and that if Keynes hurried he’d catch me. She said that to warn me, to give me time to run.”

Mason smiled dryly. “Any KGB agent worth his salt would be able to get out in time. And you’re not just any agent. She assured me you were the best.”

“That doesn’t explain how she knew we could get to her,” Wyatt said.

Mason raised his eyebrows at Flynn, as if to say _go on, detective, finish your denouement._

“She knows about the tracker in her ring,” Flynn said. “I put one in her engagement ring. It’s not a real pearl.”

“And of course she knew that,” Mason added. “You could only have afforded to buy such a large pearl by robbing a bank, and the fact that it was a black stone helped hide the tracker underneath. She knew the moment you showed it to her what it really was.”

“She tapped her ring finger on the table,” Flynn said, thinking aloud. “To let me know that she knew.” Fuck, he’d been so stupid. He’d been wasting time being angry with her when he should’ve been going after her.

“She was quite scared for you two,” Mason said, casually. “I warned her not to get attached but she’s a sweet girl at heart.”

“We have to get to her,” Wyatt said, always ready to be the hero. It made Flynn fonder of him, amused by him, and exasperated by him all at once.

But then, he supposed that was what being in love meant.

Wyatt produced the piece of equipment that they’d found in the hidden safe. “I’m not sure what this is, but it’s soaked in radiation. The Keynes have managed to get at least one weapon nuclear, I guarantee it.”

Rufus took the piece, examining it. “This is a piece of equipment from a warhead, I’d stake money on it,” he told Mason, and Flynn was surprised to hear an American accent instead of a British one. “If they’ve managed to arm a warhead already…”

“They can negotiate whatever terms they want and the world will be held hostage,” Mason said dryly. “I’m aware, Rufus, thank you.”

“We have to stop them,” Wyatt insisted. Flynn put a hand on his arm to calm him down. Wyatt had literally almost died, he didn’t need to be getting his blood pressure up any more than he had to.

“Then, gentlemen, follow me. And if you’ll be so kind as to help Rufus out, Agent Flynn, he can track Lucy for us while you have your little chat with your superiors.”

 

* * *

 

Lucy watched as her mother worked with a team to put in the last few pieces of the missile. “What’s this?” she asked one of the scientists.

“Oh, that?” He turned away from her mother and Carol slid out one of the focusing lenses, replacing it with one of a different and incorrect size. “It’s a coupling device.”

He flipped on a little switch, pointing as the other warhead behind Lucy started to blink with a red light. “It allows one missile to lock onto another, for double the damage.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Lucy noted. “Two atomic warheads that can lock onto each other?”

“It was too much work to undo it,” Carol said dismissively. “And besides, only this warhead is nuclear, if the other warhead hits it we won’t get a mushroom cloud.”

“How are we doing?” Emma asked, entering with Nicholas behind her.

“Just about finished,” Lucy said, stepping forward. “My mother’s mind was… clouded. She had lost her focus. But we’ve had a talk and she thinks this will be finished by the end of the day.”

“How wonderful,” Emma said, a smile that Lucy didn’t like in the slightest blossoming on her face. “A daughter’s touch. Nicholas?”

Nicholas pulled out a gun and grabbed Lucy’s arm, pressing the muzzle to her temple.

“You’ll finish in twenty minutes,” Emma said coldly. “Or your daughter pays the price.”

Carol’s face drained of color. Lucy had to force herself to breathe. Fuck, this was all going horribly wrong.

“You can start,” Emma went on, “by putting in the correct focusing lens, Dr. Preston. And by giving me the copy of the plans.”

Carol replaced the focusing lens and then pulled the plans out of her pocket, stored in some kind of plastic container, Lucy suspected on microfilm.

“And the backup,” Emma said, handing the plans to Nicholas, which he pocketed.

Lucy’s heart skipped a beat. If she could get a hold of those plans from Nicholas and destroy them somehow…

Carol went over to her desk and picked up a picture of Lucy as a child, opening the back and pulling out an extra container of plans.

Lucy swallowed. She hadn’t even noticed that picture.

Emma pocketed the plans. “Excellent. Now get to work.”

She sat down in Carol’s desk chair, propping her feet casually up on the desk. “Clock’s ticking.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn and Wyatt both hooked up to the radio and put on headphones, their respective superiors happy to yell at them for a good ten minutes about how messed up this whole thing had gotten.

“Mason tells me that you worked well with Flynn,” Denise said, “I suppose I should count that as a small miracle.”

Wyatt felt his face getting warm and didn’t dare glance over in Flynn’s direction.

“I’ve been informed that you managed to get along with the American,” Flynn’s boss told him. “Congratulations.”

Flynn very carefully didn’t look over at Wyatt.

“But now the goal is to get a hold of Dr. Preston’s plans and disable the weapons, by any means necessary,” Denise went on. “Kill Flynn if it comes to that.”

“Destroy the warhead and get those plans,” Flynn’s boss said. “Kill the American, if you have to.”

Neither man looked at the other, both knowing already—this was the price of being a spy.

 

* * *

 

“Finished!” Carol said quickly, closing the panel to the warhead and turning to face Emma.

Emma looked dramatically at her watch. “And with three minutes to spare!” she said, smiling like this was all a great joke.

Then she stood up, took the gun from Nicholas—and shot Carol in the head.

“No!” Lucy screamed, throwing herself forward even as she knew it was too late.

Nicholas kept a death grip on her arms, hauling her back. Lucy felt a sob escaping her and clawed at his hands. She’d been angry with Carol, so very angry, but she’d been angry because she loved her, because she wanted her mother to make it all right, to be a goddamn mother to her, and she’d never even said, she’d never told her she still loved her—

“Take her,” Emma said coldly. “Use her as collateral. We’ll rendezvous later, you know where.”

Nicholas nodded. Emma smiled at Lucy, deceptively soft. “You thought selling out your friends would save you? I can promise you that Agent Logan, at least, died for nothing. And I can also promise you it was very, very painful.”

Rage rose up in her veins and throttled her and Lucy tried to leap at Emma again, a scream of fury tearing itself out of her throat. “I’ll kill you,” she hissed, hardly even recognizing her own voice as Nicholas dragged her up the stairs. “You hear me, Emma? I’m going to kill you!”

Emma’s voice floated up to her. “I’d love to see you try.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn and Wyatt geared up and jumped down as the chopper landed on the ship. “I’ll take top deck,” Flynn said, aiming and sniping one of the guards.

“I’ll go below,” Wyatt replied.

He hurried down the steps, his gun up around every corner. The ship, oddly, seemed to have fewer people on it than he’d expected.

When he got to the room that had held—emphasis on the past tense—the warheads, he knew why.

Dr. Carol Preston lay on the floor, a bullet in her head. There were two large tables, both empty but with tools strewn about on them.

Wyatt pulled out his Geiger counter and ran it along the table.

Radioactive residue.

Shit. They already had the warhead and they’d taken Lucy with them. Wyatt couldn’t even imagine what it must’ve been like to see her mother die. They had to get to her, now.

He hurried back up the steps—and nearly ran smack into two guards.

Wyatt fired at one and had to duck around the corner as the other got his gun up and fired back. Wyatt crouched down and rolled around the corner, firing low, hitting the guy in the knees.

That was gonna be a fun injury.

He got up and walked over. “Where’d they take her?”

“The girl?” the guy laughed, and his face and voice were familiar. “She’s dead already.”

Wyatt pressed the heel of his boot to the guy’s throat. He didn’t get electrocuted for an hour to hear ‘she’s dead already’. “Where did they take her?”

The man gurgled, struggling to breathe. “Mr. Keynes has her.”

Wyatt recognized him now. It was one of the two men who’d mugged Flynn and Lucy. Wow, that felt like a lifetime ago. He glanced down at the guy’s wrist.

Flynn’s watch. No, Flynn’s mother’s watch.

Wyatt casually put a bullet in the guy’s head and then took the watch off, putting it in his pocket. Then he dashed back up onto the deck.

 

* * *

 

Flynn couldn’t find Emma, Lucy, or Nicholas anywhere on the top deck. Mason declared it clear so he went below, trying to keep his heart from climbing up out of his throat.

She had to be here. She had to be, she had to be, she’d trusted him to track her, to find her, she had to be here—

He ran into Wyatt in the car garage. Up ahead he could see a kind of tunnel—the ship must be anchored to some kind of cave system that connected to the mainland.

Those bastards.

“Flynn!” Wyatt gave him a look of absolute relief, hurrying over. Flynn's heart picked up speed. He didn't care what his superiors said. He was going to let those plans die with Emma and Nicholas, once he caught up with them. He wasn't going to hurt Wyatt. “Any sign of Emma or Nicholas?”

“No.”

“Carol Preston’s dead. I couldn’t find the plans, she must have them—Emma.”

“I doubt she’d trust anyone else with them.” Fuck. They had to get a move on.

“Flynn—Flynn wait.” Wyatt held something out to him.

Flynn looked down. It was his mother’s watch.

“One of the guys had it one,” Wyatt explained, his cheeks going pink. “I, uh, recognized it and thought—I mean, if I’m wrong and it’s not hers—”

Flynn took the watch with shaking hands, flipping it over to see the engraving underneath. _To Maria XX_.

“Her parents gifted it to her,” he explained, putting it on. “She always wore it.”

He looked up at Wyatt, he thought, _fuck I’m so in love with you_ , and then he thought—well, he thought, fuck it.

He reached up, pushing Wyatt’s hair back out of his face, his heart stuttering as Wyatt turned his face into the touch, leaning into his hand, looking up at Flynn through his lashes. Flynn couldn’t tell if Wyatt was deliberately being flirtatious or not, but he didn’t care. He dared to take a step closer, his breath coming short when Wyatt reached up to wrap his hand around Flynn’s wrist, ensuring Flynn didn’t pull his hand away.

Not that he wanted to.

Flynn curled his fingers around the back of Wyatt’s head, pulling him in, his heart beating in his ears, his gaze darting all over as he took in Wyatt’s eyes, the way they were glazed and sliding closed, his parted mouth, the flush in his cheeks. And now, ironically, unlike those times Wyatt had interrupted him when he was about to kiss Lucy, Lucy wasn’t around to—

Lucy.

Flynn jerked back. “Lucy, where is she?”

Wyatt’s eyes went from unfocused to laser sharp. “Shit, you didn’t find her?”

“I thought you found her.”

“I thought you did!”

“Guys!” Rufus ran up then bent over, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. “Fuck, I need to do more cardio. Nicholas and Emma got away—she’s on a boat but Nicholas is going overland, and he’s got Lucy. Mason says they each have a copy of Dr. Preston’s work.”

Flynn looked at Wyatt, who looked back at him. Then he looked around them.

They were in the car garage. There were what looked like a couple modified overland jeeps of some sort for all-purpose terrain…

And a motorcycle.

Flynn grinned.

Perfect.


	11. In Which the Everyone Gets Their Ass Kicked

Lucy yanked fruitlessly as Nicholas handcuffed her to the dashboard of the car. It was some kind of fancy jeep or something, open air, with huge wheels—clearly built as an all-terrain vehicle. Up above them she could hear shouts and guns firing Flynn? Mason? Both? She tried screaming, but nobody heard her all the way down here.

“I’d stop being so troublesome, if I were you,” Nicholas noted, starting up the car and wheeling it out of the improvised car garage-cave-thing, sending them down the tunnel. “You’re valuable as a hostage but not if you piss me off too much.”

“Like you’d have the balls,” Lucy shot back, twisting her wrists to see if the cuffs had any give to them.

Nicholas ignored her, flooring it and driving out up into the mountains. Lucy looked back over her shoulder, hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe…

There was no one.

She grit her teeth. If both Wyatt and Flynn were dead, she might not forgive herself, even if she knew it was the only choice she’d had.

But she was damn well going to make sure that Nicholas and Emma didn’t get out of this alive, either.

 

* * *

 

Flynn hopped on the motorcycle because of course he did, but when Wyatt went to grab one of the all-terrain vehicles, he paused.

Hmmm, what was that under the massive tarp?

He yanked on the tarp… and found there was another, even bigger vehicle underneath.

Oh, _score_.

“Are you serious?” Rufus said, sounding unbearably exasperated as Wyatt hopped into the driver’s seat.

“You want to come with?” he asked, starting the engine.

“No I don’t want to come with, I want to be back at my flat in London with my girlfriend thanks very much, not dealing with whatever this insanity is, but oh no, come to Italy Rufus, you’ll have a ton of fun Rufus, don’t you want to see the Sistine Chapel Rufus…”

“Great, tell Mason where we went.” Wyatt pulled the car out of the parking spot.

“I hate spies,” Rufus grumbled as Wyatt took off down the tunnel. “I really, really do.”

 

* * *

 

Flynn crouched low over the motorcycle as he roared after Lucy and Nicholas. He could just see them ahead of him, but their larger vehicle had to follow the roads—especially because there was a goddamn warhead in the back of the car.

His smaller one, helpfully lacking in an explosive piece of war equipment, didn’t.

He probably had been a little stupid not grabbing goggles or a helmet, but fuck it. He made a sharp right turn and started barreling down through the trees, the motorcycle momentarily catching air as it caught on a rock and he had to struggle to land it without tipping over.

If he could just get down this mountain, he could catch them right as they crossed the river and came around this turn.

Flynn ducked as a tree branch came at him, wheeling the motorcycle around a tree.

He just had to get to Lucy.

 

* * *

 

Lucy kicked at Nicholas, trying to get him out of the car. Nicholas struggled to keep control of the wheel and Lucy at the same time, nearly driving off the road once or twice.

“You kick me out,” he growled, trying to grab for her foot as she caught him in the chest, “how are you going to stop the car, huh? You’re cuffed down, you stupid—”

He caught sight of something in the rearview mirror and swore. Lucy jerked her head back to look and her heart leapt.

Someone was coming after them, in a bigger car than theirs. She strained her neck, trying to get a better glimpse—

Wyatt. Oh thank God, thank _God_ , it was Wyatt! He was alive!

Nicholas swore and jerked the wheel, taking the vehicle off road, heading towards…

Lucy’s throat tightened.

He was heading for the river.

No. No, no, no, no… she jerked frantically at her cuffs, a primal, animal fear taking over her. She couldn’t do this again, she wasn’t going to drown, she wasn’t she wasn’t—

The car’s exhaust pipe was at the top instead of the bottom, probably for situations like this, in case the cave the cars were in got flooded. Nicholas headed straight into the river, the dirty water sloshing up and steadily rising.

Lucy tried to stand, to get herself up above the tide, but her cuffs kept her down. Nicholas seemed unconcerned as he kept going, worried only about putting space between himself and Wyatt.

The water closed over her head.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt jerked to a stop at the river, his heart galloping. Lucy, she’d been trapped just like this before—he could see her thrashing, trying to get free, just before the car got deep enough that she was submerged.

Fuck!

Wyatt backed up the car to give himself a good head start. He’d grown up driving his dad’s car up and down the backroads of Texas, and when his dad was pissed at him he’d drive the car until it gave out and then would make Wyatt fix it. He knew vehicles.

And with these big wheels…

Wyatt revved the engine and slammed his foot on the accelerator.

The car shot forward, heading straight for the river. Just before it reached it Wyatt jerked the wheel, sending the car sliding sideways.

The car hydroplaned across the river, over the water like a skipping stone, the large, buoyant tires keeping it afloat.

Take that, Nicholas.

 

* * *

 

Her lungs were burning, she couldn’t get air, she couldn’t—she couldn’t see anything, the water was all around her, she kicked and kicked but she couldn’t get free, she had to breathe, she had—

Her head broke the surface.

Lucy coughed and spluttered, feeling tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes, spitting out water. Nicholas didn’t say anything, apparently unconcerned if she lived at this point, and she kicked at him again just for the sheer spite of it. Terror choked her even more than the water did, making it hard to breathe.

“Fuck,” Nicholas swore, looking over his shoulder. Lucy shook her head like a dog, trying to get the water out of her face and eyes. Apparently Wyatt was still following them, thank God.

And then someone came crashing down from the trees, literally driving into them.

Lucy screamed instinctively as the other vehicle impacted them and they all went flying, the car turning over and over down the slope, until she landed upside down—her head banged against the wall—and it all went black.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt skidded the car to a halt as Flynn literally emerged from the fucking trees on his motorcycle and rammed Nicholas’s car, sending all of them tumbling over the cliff.

He really, really questioned his taste in men.

Flynn ended up pinned underneath his motorcycle, apparently out cold, while Nicholas’s car was upside down. The warhead, thank fuck, hadn’t gone off, although Wyatt hadn’t thought that it would just from a little rolling around on a hill.

He dashed out of the car and ran for Lucy.

She was curled up, unconscious, handcuffed to the dashboard. Cold rain started to fall as Wyatt got to her and he could see her shivering. Shit.

The dashboard had come loose in the wreck and he was able to yank Lucy free and drag her out of the car, although she still had the handcuffs on. He laid her down in the grass, pushing her hair out of her eyes, checking for broken bones. “Lucy, Lucy, hey.”

She slowly blinked her eyes open. “Wyatt?”

He nodded, smiling down at her. “You’re okay, I’ve got you.”

She gave him a happy, disbelieving smile. “Emma said you were dead.”

“Takes a lot to kill me,” he assured her, gently cupping her cheek. “You hang tight, I’ll get Flynn.”

Lucy nodded—and then her eyes went wide. “Wyatt!”

He turned just in time for a pipe to come crashing into his face.

 

* * *

 

Lucy rolled out of the way as Nicholas smashed a pipe from the car in Wyatt’s face. She jumped up, took a flying leap, and got her handcuffs around Nicholas’s throat, piggybacking on him. “Let him go!” she yelled, yanking with all of her might.

Nicholas grabbed her and flipped her over his head so that she went crashing on her back in the mud. Pain radiated up her spine and she stumbled to her knees as Wyatt slumped to the ground with a soft moan, blood sliding down from his temple.

She crawled until she was in between Wyatt and Nicholas, adrenaline coursing through her even as the bumps and bruises from the car crash made themselves known. She wasn’t letting him get to Wyatt, to either of her boys, she wasn’t—

And then Nicholas drew his gun.

 

* * *

 

Flynn stirred, his body aching, a heavy weight on his chest.

His motorcycle, it was on top of him…

He turned his head—and heard Lucy scream.

He jerked up, saw Nicholas draw his gun, saw Lucy lunge for him, screaming. “No!”

Nicholas backhanded her, sending her flying into the mud.

Flynn grabbed the motorcycle, a surge of adrenaline hitting him. He wasn’t losing this family, he wasn’t losing anyone he loved, not to Rittenhouse or anyone else, not again—

He lifted the motorcycle up, using momentum to get it over his head.

Nicholas was lifting his gun up, pointing it at the back of Wyatt’s head as Wyatt lay in the mud, blood running down the side of his face, dazed and confused. Lucy screamed, Flynn strained with all his might—and threw the motorcycle at Nicholas.

Nicholas went crashing to the ground. Flynn stumbled around, putting himself in between Wyatt and Lucy as Lucy crawled to Wyatt, shaking him, dragging him into her lap. “Wyatt,” she was begging, sobbing. “Wyatt, Wyatt, wake up, wake up.”

Nicholas staggered to his feet, his gun gone, apparently dropped, but then he drew a knife out of—somewhere, Flynn wasn’t sure—and charged at him.

Flynn managed to turn just in time, grabbing Nicholas’s wrist, bending it, pressing his thumb into the pressure point until Nicholas had to let go of the knife with a grunt and Flynn could grab it, yanking Nicholas’s arm back…

He stabbed him in the gut.

Blood bubbled up between Nicholas’s lips and his eyes went glassy. He choked, struggled for air, his hands shook, his chest jerking…

He fell, his body slumping like a sack of potatoes, his face staring upwards at nothing as rain began to fall.

Flynn collapsed to his knees. Fuck. They’d done it.

 

* * *

 

 _Jesus_ his head hurt.

Wyatt opened his eyes to find Lucy holding him and crying. “Luce…” He couldn’t get her full name out. “’m okay…”

“Oh thank God,” she gasped, hugging him.

“Ow, ow, careful.”

“Sorry.” She looked over at Flynn, who was on his knees and looking about as exhausted as Wyatt felt. “Garcia.” She reached out, her hand shaking.

Flynn reached back, his hand grasping hers, squeezing tightly.

Wyatt turned his head…

And saw that Dr. Preston’s plans had fallen out of Nicholas’s pocket.

He reached out, grabbing them, shoving them into his own pocket. He suspected Flynn had the same orders that he did, and he really didn’t want to get into that right now. Not when his head hurt like a bitch and Flynn looked dead on his feet and Lucy was shaking uncontrollably as the trauma set in.

Flynn staggered to his feet, reaching down and getting his hands on Wyatt’s upper forearms, helping him up.

The pain in his head spiked and Wyatt threw up onto the grass, the world going white as he lost vision. He sagged, and both Lucy and Flynn helped him to the truck, helping him sit down on one of the huge tires and lean back against it. “Concussion,” Flynn said grimly. “Stay still, it’ll get better soon.”

Wyatt nodded, closing his eyes. He could hear Lucy murmuring “I’m all right, I’m all…” and cracked his eyes open to see Flynn hugging her tightly.

She pulled back. “Garcia. Wyatt, I’m—I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—you’d made such a mess and I couldn’t tell you the truth and so I couldn’t warn you, I had to get to my mother or it would all have gone up in smoke but I didn’t want—I was so scared—”

Wyatt reached out, grabbing her hand. Flynn tangled his hand in her hair, cradling her to his chest. “It’s all right, _moja ljubav_ ,” he murmured. “It’s all right.”

Wyatt didn’t speak a lick of Flynn’s native language but he was pretty sure he knew what that meant.

Flynn ended up standing next to Wyatt, holding Lucy, his hand gently petting through Wyatt’s hair as Wyatt’s migraine slowly receded. They were all too exhausted to really talk, so Wyatt just savored the peace. They’d have to track down Emma, but at least they’d managed to stop the fucking warhead.

That is, he enjoyed the peace until Mason rolled up with a team and Rufus in tow and Rufus examined the warhead and went, “um.”

Everyone looked at him.

Rufus gave a slightly nervous smile. “So, uh, I hate to say this but—wrong warhead.”

Wyatt, Flynn, and Lucy all stared at him.

Wrong fucking warhead!?

 

* * *

 

Mason bundled them all onto an Italian naval boat despite Flynn’s vehement protests that Wyatt was in no condition to do anything after being electrocuted and then smashed in the head with a pipe and that Lucy was in no condition to do anything after being nearly drowned, in a car crash, and was now limping.

Lucy just leaned heavily against him as they were ushered up to the command deck of the ship. “Emma’s taken one of the boats,” Mason said grimly. “She’ll be taking the warhead to deliver it to the main group of Rittenhouse, unless we figure out where the hell she is first.”

“Out in the ocean?” Flynn said, shaking his head. His arm was still around her shoulders and she really hoped he wouldn’t remember himself and let go. “How would we even know where to start?”

“If we had the name of the boat, we could radio it and get its location,” the ship captain said.

Wyatt frowned. “Try… _La Nave Madre_.”

Everyone stared at him, Lucy included. Wyatt shrugged. “What? It’s the name of Nicholas’s father’s boat, they had a miniature of it at the party? Boat that started the whole shipping company?”

Oh, she was going to kiss the living daylights out of him once they were alone.

“Call them up,” Mason said. “If we can keep them talking long enough we can get their location.”

“But that’s useless,” Rufus protested. “We won’t get to them in time.”

Lucy grinned. “I have an idea that might help with that.”

 

* * *

 

Wyatt ushered Lucy down below while Flynn monitored the radio with Mason. “Come in, _La Nave Madre_ ,” the captain said, hailing them. “ _La Nave Madre_ , come in.”

Flynn folded his arms. Emma was a smart woman, but she wasn’t as cold-blooded as she liked to act. If they appealed to simple logic she’d beat them, but if they could get her angry…

He held out his hand. “Here, let me try.”

The captain looked at Mason, who shrugged. “We don’t have anything to lose at this point.”

Flynn took the radio and cleared his throat. “Hello, Emma. I’m sure you’re listening. You don’t have to say anything, that’s all right. I just wanted to let you know that just a few hours ago, I killed your husband.”

He paused. There was no response.

 

* * *

 

“All right,” Rufus said, finally stepping away from the warhead. “It’s all set.”

Wyatt grabbed Lucy’s hand, squeezing it. “You’re amazing.”

 

* * *

 

“I’d like to report that he died bravely, selflessly, and courageously,” Flynn went on. “But he didn’t. He died cowardly, begging for his life and agreeing to give up anything and indeed anyone in exchange for his safety.”

There was a soft noise on the other end of the radio, and then Emma’s voice came through the speakers. “Flynn.”

“Ah, Emma. Nice of you to join us.”

“Flynn I’d like you to listen to me very carefully.” Emma’s tone was like a slow-burning fire, persistent and deadly. “You got in our way once before, poking your nose in where it shouldn’t be. And you know the price that you paid. So you’ll know that I’m being serious when I tell you that after I give this warhead over, I will track down everyone you’ve ever loved, starting with that precious Miss Preston.”

The so-called precious Miss Preston was walking up with Wyatt and Rufus. Flynn had to bite back his grin at the look on her face.

“Any family member still living, any old friend or flame, they will die in the slowest, most painful way possible. Rather like your Wyatt Logan. Do you understand me?”

Flynn heard the rumble and roar of an explosion, and decided that really, Lucy should get to do the honors.

He handed the radio over to her.

The gleam in Lucy’s eyes was savage. “I see one problem with that plan, Emma,” she said.

“Ah, Miss Preston. Amuse me.”

“Well, first of all, Wyatt Logan is right here.” She held the radio in front of Wyatt so that he could say a cheery ‘hello’. “Second of all, while you were talking, we locked onto your location. And using that coupling device that you oh-so-courteously left on your warheads, we were able to take the warhead that we got from your dead husband and use it to lock onto your warhead. Now, while this missile isn’t nuclear, it should be more than deadly enough to take out a, say, moderately sized fishing boat and sink that nuclear warhead of yours.

“So, if you’re going to jump ship…” Lucy’s tone was deceptively light. “I suggest you do that… right about now.”

On the other end of the radio came the faint sounds of splashing as men started to jump ship.

“You see, Emma?” Lucy continued in that light tone of voice. “I told you I’d kill you.”

They all watched as the missile hit the boat in the distance, and the other end of the radio went dead.

Mason breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, captain.”

Flynn couldn’t help himself—he picked Lucy up, spinning her around. “ _Ti genije_ ,” he told her, as Lucy laughed and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his neck.

“Okay,” Rufus said, “while the implication that I just armed a warhead to kill a dozen people is disturbing, that was also pretty badass. You kicked her ass.”

Flynn set Lucy down, grinning over at Wyatt, who looked like fucking Christmas had come early.

“To be fair, you all got your asses kicked as well,” Rufus went on.

“Way to ruin the moment, Rufus,” Flynn said.

“You can’t oppress the truth, Flynn.”

“I should never have let you two meet,” Mason muttered.


	12. In Which Certain People Finally Get on the Same Page

Flynn packed up his things slowly, trying to pretend that he wasn’t stalling.

They had one more day, and then he had to go back, report to his superiors in person and give a full report.

He really, really didn’t want to go back.

He didn’t want to go back anyway, originally. He’d never liked working for the KGB—not that he’d have been keen on working for the CIA either. But now that he’d had a taste of happiness, now that he’d fallen for Wyatt and Lucy…

Going back felt like a death sentence.

At least, he supposed, he’d have one day of rest to recover after getting an entire motorcycle on top of him yesterday which was, he supposed, his own fault for using said motorcycle to ram into a car at top speed at the edge of a cliff. He wasn’t sure what Lucy and Wyatt were up to but he could very well guess. He hoped they enjoyed it. Lucy would be going to England, and Wyatt presumably back to America or on another assignment, so they might see each other again but not for a while. That had to be hard, for both of them.

Flynn folded another pair of pants and put them in his bag. He wasn’t taking much. No reason for a KGB agent to wear nice clothes, sad to say. He was fully prepared for a thorough lecture from his superiors about bombing Dr. Preston’s plans along with the warhead and Emma, but at least nobody else had gotten their hands on a copy, especially the CIA. America had a big enough ego problem as it was.

The door creaked open and he turned around.

Lucy stood there, hesitant, like she wasn’t sure if she should come in.

“Hi,” she said softly.

“Hello.”

“Is this a bad time, or…?”

“No, no, come in.” This was technically her room too, after all.

Lucy walked in. “Sorry I was just—debriefing with Mason. I, um, I thought I should give you this.”

She opened up her hand, revealing the engagement ring nestled in her palm.

Flynn’s heart just about shattered.

He gently curled her fingers back over the ring, patting them gently. “No, you keep it. As a souvenir. And in case I need to drag you out of more trouble.”

“I believe your little stunts were the thing that got us into trouble in the first place.”

“You’re the definition of trouble, Chop Shop Girl, don’t forget it.”

Lucy blushed, smiling up at him, then ducked her head back down to slide the ring onto her finger again. “Well, if nothing else, it gets rid of unwanted advances.”

Flynn was unable to suppress his smile. “I’m sure you can deal with those on your own, ring or no ring.”

Lucy looked up at him, her gaze frank. “It would help if I had a very tall, very intimidating boyfriend with me.”

Flynn’s throat went dry. “I—I have to go back.”

Lucy’s eyes glittered wetly. “I know,” she whispered. “But I suppose I liked to pretend. I have a vivid imagination.”

He remembered her description of picturing being brought to the States. “Will you get to see Amy?”

“Yes. Not as soon as I would like… but yes. I will.” Lucy brushed her fingers against his. “Flynn…” She took a deep breath, and then brought her hands up to grab a hold of his shirt, steadying herself. He tilted his head down, until their noses could brush. “I’m not good at this,” she whispered. “At saying—how I feel, at being open like that, but…”

He dared to let his hands settle at her waist, her face so close to his, her eyes falling closed—

The door opened and Wyatt walked in. “Hey, Flynn, we have to talk about—” He stopped in his tracks.

Flynn started to pull away. He should leave Lucy and Wyatt to say goodbye properly. Wyatt was going back to America. Flynn wouldn’t get to see him again, either.

He’d hated Russia for a lot of reasons over the years but the idea of it had never felt so cold in his mind as it did now.

Lucy’s hand tightened in Flynn’s shirt, holding him still. She looked over at Wyatt. “Come here,” she said softly.

Flynn watched as Wyatt walked over obediently, his eyes flicking back and forth between them. He looked like he was going to vibrate out of his suit with nervousness.

Lucy reached up, cupping Wyatt’s cheek, her thumb rubbing back and forth gently. The affection there made Flynn’s heart ache and he moved to leave again but Lucy’s hand just tightened in his shirt once more.

She gave Flynn a look that very clearly said _stay put_ and then leaned in to Wyatt, whispering something in his ear.

Wyatt looked at Flynn, and there was a flash of complete and total panic on his face, before he squared his shoulders and stepped up to Flynn.

Flynn didn’t see the kiss coming.

He couldn’t even remember seeing Wyatt move. He just suddenly felt Wyatt’s lips pressing in against his, soft, tentative.

For a second he thought he had to be dreaming, that this was a fever or something, but then Wyatt made a noise of annoyance in the back of his throat and started to pull away and it was like everything in Flynn clicked to life.

He grabbed him, keeping Wyatt in place so that he could kiss him back. Wyatt made another noise, this one sounding relieved and wounded at the same time, and pressed into Flynn, eagerly following Flynn’s lead as the kiss deepened.

Fuck, he’d hardly dared to let himself think about this, but now that he had Wyatt in his arms he was dangerously close to never letting him go.

Except, y’know, to pull away just enough to catch his breath.

Lucy gently moved Wyatt out of the way, going up onto her tiptoes. “If I don’t say it now I’ll—” She shook her head. “I love you,” she blurted out, and then she kissed him.

Flynn nearly fell backwards as Lucy put all of her weight on him, catching her around the waist. She made a tiny sound that was far too close to a sob for his liking and clung to him, shaking.

How could he do anything but kiss her back?

Lucy didn’t kiss like Wyatt, who was pliant and eager. Lucy was demanding, soft but determined, and she took all she could get from him and more. Flynn was gulping for air when she pulled back, her cheeks pink and eyes sparkling.

“I want you,” she told him. “I want you so badly, I want you to take us both to bed.”

“Oh, now we’re being obvious,” Wyatt grumbled.

“You were already plenty obvious,” Lucy replied.

“No, he wasn’t,” Flynn objected.

“All right, to any normal human he wasn’t, Garcia, honestly.”

Wyatt looked incredibly embarrassed. “Just not used to a guy, that’s all,” he admitted, his voice strained.

Flynn’s heart ached and he reached out, brushing Wyatt’s hair back. “It’s okay,” he told him.

Wyatt’s eyes darted up, his jaw working. “It’s—it’s always okay, with you,” he whispered in a rush. “I always know I’m okay.”

Flynn knew what Wyatt was saying. It had only been a short time, but he could read between the lines with Wyatt. “I love you too,” he informed him, surprised at how rough his voice sounded.

“And I’m chopped liver?” Lucy’s words were teasing but her voice wobbled slightly.

Flynn kissed her, his hand cupping her face while his arm was still around her waist. “ _Moja draga, obožavam te_.” The words rushed out of him before he could stop them, words he knew were ridiculously sappy and damning in their intensity—but he didn’t get a lifetime with either of them. He didn’t get years and years to find all the ways to tell them how he felt. He only had now, this moment, and so he’d damn well make the most of it.

Lucy smiled against his mouth. He knew she didn’t speak his language, but he also knew that she understood him nonetheless. “Good,” she whispered, and then she kissed him again, like sealing a pact.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt hadn’t woken up today with the expectation that he’d be having sex with not one but two people, and at the same time, but he’d be damned if he was going to put the brakes on it.

A part of him fluttered in panic as he let Flynn kiss him, but he shoved it aside. He was never going to see Flynn again after this. He’d hate himself if he pulled away and didn’t let himself have what he wanted, just this once.

Flynn kissed him like fire, like he was going to consume him, and Flynn was more than happy to burn. He still ached from yesterday and Flynn and Lucy were unbearably gentle with him, their hands sliding softly over his skin, avoiding his burns as they stripped off his clothes.

It was pretty clear that he wasn’t going to be up for full, athletic sex, and much as he wanted to have absolutely everything done to him and do absolutely everything in return. He would have done anything the other two asked of him, and perhaps they sensed that, because instead Flynn just pulled him back so that Wyatt could feel his chest up against him, Flynn’s hand dipping down between his legs.

He’d known the guy was all muscle, but Jesus, it was a completely different thing to feel all of that muscle against him. Wyatt whined, pushing back, feeling Flynn’s hard cock rubbing against his ass and thinking with a jolt, _fuck I want that inside me_.

The thought excited and terrified him, and while he couldn’t stop a noise of disappointment from escaping him, he was also a little glad he didn’t have to face that choice tonight, to start out with.

Lucy was just as gorgeous naked the second time as she’d been the first, taking Wyatt’s hand and putting it in her hair as she got on her knees. “Feel free to tug,” she told him with a knowing smirk. “And Wyatt?”

“Yes ma’am?”

“Don’t come until Flynn says you can.”

His entire body jerked at that, and then Lucy’s mouth was sinking down over his cock and his legs nearly gave out on him.

Flynn’s hands were large and firm, callouses catching on his more sensitive patches of skin as he slid them up and down Wyatt’s body, keeping him from jerking his hips forward, keeping him effectively pinned.

“I wondered if you liked it when I pushed you into those walls,” Flynn murmured, his voice a low, accented rasp in Wyatt’s ear. His tongue darted out, as if sampling how Wyatt tasted in that spot just below his ear, and then right at the tendons of his neck.

Wyatt tightened his hold in Lucy’s hair as her tongue flicked out, dragging up the underside of his cock and then moving along the slit at the head.

“It’s a real pity we can’t do everything to you,” Flynn noted. One of his hands slid up to roll Wyatt’s nipple, earning him a desperate, choking sound that Wyatt hadn’t even known he was capable of making. “Would you let me?” he asked, kissing Wyatt’s jaw. “Would you let me do everything to you?”

Wyatt nodded. Whatever fears and doubts he had, when he was with Flynn they all fell away. “Yes.”

“And here I thought you’d scratch and claw,” Flynn murmured, sounding amused.

Maybe another time, when Wyatt wanted a little pushback, when he wanted Flynn and Lucy to get really firm with him. But right now his body wouldn’t hold out that long, and they only had one day, and he really, really wanted Flynn and Lucy to let him come.

Flynn’s one hand slid even higher, pressing lightly against Wyatt’s neck to expose him further. Wyatt drew in a shaky breath, everything in him jolting as pleasure shot down his spine. Flynn was barely putting pressure down, wasn’t really squeezing, but holy fuck—

“Oh,” Flynn murmured. His fingers stroked Wyatt’s throat. “Well, that’s something to remember.”

It was just a saying—there wasn’t going to be anything to remember because they wouldn’t get another chance at this—but it both hurt and helped to hear that, to know that if he had his way, Flynn would make this happen again.

His other hand slid down, lightly slapping Wyatt’s ass. “Spread your legs.”

It was probably helpful for Lucy, too, as she braced herself on Wyatt’s thighs and started to move up and down properly, taking him down as far as she could until Wyatt was practically vibrating with the need to come. The pressure was building at the base of his spine like a goddamn tea kettle about to boil and he could barely hold on.

Flynn let go with one hand, and then when his fingers came back to touch him they were newly slick and a little cold. They ghosted along his entrance, just stroking, letting Wyatt know that this was a someday possibility, something that Flynn was thinking about—

“God, Flynn, _please_ ,” he choked out. He needed to come so badly and he didn’t know how much longer he could hold it back.

Flynn kissed him, his tongue sliding in and out, mimicking Lucy’s movements up and down on his cock, and then the tip of his finger worked its way inside of him and Wyatt’s entire body seized up, feeling used and loved at the same time. He had to come, he was shaking so hard, he had to—

“That’s it, Cowboy,” Flynn whispered. “Now.”

Wyatt bit down on Flynn’s lip so hard he tasted blood, and he still managed to make an ungodly noise as he came. Lucy swallowed down a fair amount but she had to wipe off her mouth, her lips red and swollen, looking completely debauched.

He sagged back against Flynn, panting, as Lucy soothingly kissed up his hip, his stomach, his chest, his shoulder, until she could kiss him on the mouth and let him taste himself on her.

Wyatt grabbed her and pulled her to him, savoring her small noise of frustration as she ground against him. “Hey, Flynn, I think someone’s impatient.”

Flynn kissed the juncture of Lucy’s neck and shoulder. “Just a little bit.”

Lucy glared at them both. “On the bed,” she growled. “Now.”

…holy shit that was hot.

Both he and Flynn scurried to obey.

 

* * *

 

Lucy crawled onto the bed, starting with Wyatt and kissing him nice and deep. “Get me open,” she ordered, taking his wrist and guiding his hand between her legs. “I want to be nice and ready so Flynn can fuck me.”

Wyatt gave an absolutely frantic noise, his hand shaking slightly as he ran it up and down her side. Lucy smirked, taking her free hand and grabbing a handful of his hair to guide his mouth down to kiss along her neck. “Flynn, why don’t you watch?”

Flynn’s eyes looked completely black, his face tight with desire. He looked like the last thing he wanted to do was sit back and watch, but he settled back to follow orders as Wyatt started to rub at her clit.

Lucy shifted around so that she faced Flynn, Wyatt behind her, spreading her legs so that Flynn could see where Wyatt’s fingers disappeared into her folds. She was slick and yearning, aching to be filled, and she eyed Flynn’s straining cock with pleasure. She was going to love having that inside of her.

Flynn’s gaze flicked back and forth between her and Wyatt as Wyatt touched her, his mouth sucking at her neck, the hand that wasn’t buried two fingers deep into her instead palming her breasts, lightly pinching her nipples. Lucy moaned appreciatively, letting him know that she liked that bit of roughness.

“Jesus Christ,” Flynn swore. “Lucy…”

“No,” she gasped out, starting to grind down against Wyatt’s fingers. “No touching.”

Flynn’s hands balled into fists in the sheets as Wyatt groaned against her skin. She smirked, then gasped as Wyatt went back to touching her clit, his fingers finally curling just the right way to make her feel like she was melting.

Maybe another time she’d be patient with herself and pull away, tell Wyatt to stop before she came—but right now she was greedy. This was the only time she was going to get with them and she intended to wring every moment for all it was worth.

“Right there,” she ordered. “Right—Wyatt yes, yes, just like that—”

Wyatt, eager as always to comply, kept at it, working her until she saw stars flashing in front of her. Flynn’s dark gaze, his hungry, taut position, only made it so much hotter. He looked like he was going to leap at her and fuck her until she lost her mind, and it was driving her pleasure ever higher until she—oh God oh fuck yes _yes_ —

She jerked, her hips twisting, thrusting, and she felt Wyatt swear against her skin as she came in his arms.

When her vision came into focus again, Flynn looked like he’d die if she didn’t let him touch her. She smirked, holding out a hand.

“Come on then,” she said. “Fuck me.”

Flynn didn’t waste a second.

 

* * *

 

Flynn pulled Lucy onto him, kissing her for all he was worth, her whole body grinding slowly up against him. He didn’t think he’d ever been this hard in his life and he had no idea who, in that moment, he’d wanted to trade place with more—Wyatt or Lucy. He’d wanted both of them beyond words and yet, he’d also had plenty of fun watching, even though it was a tease.

But now—now he had Lucy in his arms and he was never letting her go.

She pressed him down into the mattress with her hands and hips, her legs sliding open to straddle him. Flynn heard Wyatt groan and felt a dip in the mattress as Wyatt got onto his side, ready to fully enjoy the ensuing show.

Lucy grasped his cock firmly in hand, stroking him as she guided him to her. Flynn’s fingers flexed, digging into her skin, and he gasped sharply against her mouth as she sank onto him.

It had been years, definitely, but he was sure that even if it had only been a day that sex with Lucy would still feel overwhelming, just as sex with Wyatt had felt overwhelming. He wanted to just spend the rest of his life switching back and forth between them and never leaving this room.

Lucy made a small noise as she adjusted herself, and for a moment Flynn feared he’d hurt her, that she wasn’t prepared enough, but then she gave a happy little sigh and began to roll her hips, taking him into her inch by inch until he was flush against her, shaking with the desire to fuck into her with everything he had and trying to hold back.

“Good,” Lucy whispered. She sat up, giving him the full, glorious view of her as she pushed herself up and down on him.

Flynn reached up, his hand tangling in Lucy’s hair as he slowly drew his fingers through it, pushing it out of her face before his hand moved down to cup her cheek. His hand felt impossibly big and clumsy against her fine, sharp, almost elfin features, and he rubbed his thumb against her soft skin wonderingly as she continued her movements above and around him.

Lucy smiled, half daring and half shy, a strange and theoretically impossible combination, then turned just slightly so that she could press a kiss to the base of his palm.

Flynn’s heart seemed to expand until it pressed at the confines of his ribcage.

He loved her absolutely.

“Fuck me,” Lucy ordered, her eyes bright and dark all at once, and he dug his heels into the mattress and pushed up into her, thrusting in short, sharp movements until Lucy’s head fell back and she started to cry out.

“Christ,” Wyatt choked out, watching, and then he was kissing Flynn, first at the mouth and then along his neck, tangling his fingers with Flynn’s free hand, and Lucy was still moving, falling forward to brace herself as Flynn started to lose his mind and all sense of place and just fucked into her with everything in him, pulling desperate begging noises out of her, touching and being touched in return by both of them and so goddamn in love and feeling so goddamn good—

Lucy gave a sharp little cry and he felt her clenching and fluttering around him, slicking him up even more as she came, and he couldn’t hold himself back. He buried himself into her, feeling nothing but heat as the orgasm washed over him.

They all lay there, breaths coming in sharp and pointed, the aches and pains from yesterday mingling with the pleasant afterglow of orgasm.

Flynn squeezed Wyatt’s hand, and kept carding his fingers through Lucy’s hair.

He couldn’t escape the truth of tomorrow but in this moment he loved, he was loved, he was in love.

 

* * *

 

They spent the day being as lazy as possible except for when they fucked.

Lucy ordered room service while Flynn ate her out, and Wyatt had to bury his face in the pillow to keep his laughter from being heard.

She also instigated a pillow fight, which Wyatt won, if you asked him, and Flynn won if you asked him, and it didn’t really matter anyway because Flynn ended up pinning Wyatt down and growled “be good for me, Cowboy, spread those legs” and after that all thought of pillows was forgotten (accept as cushioning).

Lucy wore Flynn’s gigantic (for her) shirt and nothing else, and ate all the strawberries when the room service was brought up. Wyatt tried and failed to speak some Russian, and Flynn let Lucy throw grapes for him to catch into his mouth.

They napped, a lot. Lucy dozed off when the sun was high in the sky, Flynn warm and pressed against her back, his arm over her, and Wyatt facing her, their legs all tangled, her head tucked under Wyatt’s chin, both of them lending her warmth. When she woke up, the sun was setting.

They dared to go on another walk around the city, although Wyatt and Flynn had to be careful about where and when they touched, grabbing dinner at a café and wandering the streets until it was dark and Flynn could press Wyatt to an alley wall and kiss him senseless and they could dance with Lucy around an empty square and she could run through a fountain, getting herself soaked.

Lucy couldn’t help but feel like it was all so much more perfect, and painful, for lasting just one day. She supposed she should be grateful that they got a day at all, but she wanted to grab onto it with both hands and hold until she strangled it, until she never had to let go.

They stayed up as late as they could, just talking. Wyatt and Flynn traded war stories while she curled into Flynn’s side, Wyatt blushing whenever Flynn called him ‘Cowboy’, Flynn’s fingers slowly tracing patterns up and down her back. She told them some history stories she knew, how she’d come to love it and wanted to get into it, and she and Wyatt swapped car stories. Flynn told them about Lorena, and Iris, and Wyatt told them about Jess and art.

She hated feeling her eyes falling closed. She could tell the others hated it too. Flynn was in the middle and Wyatt was clinging to him, clinging to her on Flynn’s other side, his grip bruising tight but still welcome. Flynn played with her hair, kissing Wyatt occasionally, like if he kept making himself move he could stay awake and savor this.

“We should run away together,” she said, watching the stars.

Wyatt made a disbelieving noise, his face pressed into Flynn’s neck.

“Where would we go?” Flynn asked.

“Anywhere. Somewhere far. South America. Cape Town. Japan.”

Wyatt’s fingers brushed against her cheek. “They’d find me,” he said hoarsely. “The CIA.”

Flynn didn’t even have to say it—they all knew the KGB would find him. And Rittenhouse, or whatever was left of it, would probably find all three of them without their respective espionage organizations to keep them safe.

“I can pretend,” she said, softly.

Flynn squeezed her. She held onto him, onto both of them, and desperately imagined a home, somewhere, the three of them. She imagined the color of the walls, and the huge bed, and the curtains, and the space for Amy to come and visit, all the way down to the dining room table.

Maybe this time if she imagined hard enough, dreamed it hard enough, she’d get it.


	13. In Which We Get Both an Ending and a Beginning

Lucy woke up feeling happy.

It was ironic, she supposed, once she was awake enough to remember the circumstances—what day it was, and what was coming next.

She was draped half on top of Flynn, his arm securely around her, holding her close. All three sets of legs were hopelessly tangled together with the sheets. When she opened her eyes, she could see Wyatt sleeping against Flynn’s other side, completely relaxed. She could see the burns and bruises on his body from yesterday, but he was breathing deep and even, apparently without pain.

Lucy closed her eyes again for a moment, savoring it. She reached out and gently stroked her fingertips over Wyatt’s face, smiling helplessly as he twitched slightly. Flynn gave a little rumble in his sleep and she kissed his chest, feeling him breath slow and steady beneath her lips.

Then she slowly, ever so carefully, got up.

Flynn’s forehead creased unhappily as she slipped away, but he didn’t wake. Lucy glanced outside the window, taking in the creeping dawn, the odd gray color of everything. It felt almost like this world wasn’t real, that she was somewhere in between.

Fitting, that.

She fingered her lovely red dress, discarded on the floor last night and now, sadly, ruined from all the mud and water and blood yesterday. She’d liked that dress—and she’d liked Wyatt and Flynn’s reactions to her in it.

Instead she put on a dark skirt and blue top, putting her hair up into a ponytail and slipping on some sensible, non-heeled shoes. A little old fashioned in style—she felt a bit like a bobby socks girl—but no matter.

She pulled out from the hidden pocket in her purse the locket, slipping it on. Inside was a picture of Amy, one that Rufus had gotten a hold of and smuggled to her through Jiya Marri, the agent that had originally contacted Lucy those two years ago.

Lucy fingered the worn metal of the locket. Amy was being flown into England. Lucy would finally get to see her soon. Mason had said something about a quick mission before that, but at this point, what was one more week? She’d waited her whole life, she could wait just that bit more.

She packed light, taking the powder blue outfit with her, feeling stupid but unable to give it up. Flynn had picked it out for her.

Like he asked, she kept the engagement ring, too.

She paused by the door, glancing back. Neither man had moved, still curled up together. Her chest heaved and she bit her lip hard to hold in the sob, her vision blurring as her eyes got wet.

She’d always known it would end this way. They’d be split up. If she was very, very lucky, perhaps she could ask Rufus to track the boys down and get messages to them from her. But given the channels he’d have to go through for that… she didn’t think it was likely.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want Amy anymore. Of course she still wanted her. And she still wanted, someday, to go to college, to study history.

It was just that she wanted to be with the boys, too. She loved them. She had given up on being in love, when everyone she knew got married in their early twenties and she was just longing to get out. A German immigrant in her mid-thirties who wanted to be an academic, yeah, good luck finding someone who wanted to put up with that.

But now she’d found it, found it with not one but two people… and yet she had to let them go.

Lucy slipped away. Perhaps it was cruel to do it while they were asleep, but she knew if they were awake she’d never leave. They’d hold her and kiss her and she wouldn’t be able to find the strength. It had to be now.

Lucy Preston held her suitcase tight and walked down the hallway of the silent hotel.

She didn’t let herself cry.

 

* * *

 

The moment Flynn woke up he felt something was missing.

Wyatt’s breath blew softly across Flynn’s collarbone, his hand tangled with Flynn’s where Flynn had wrapped his arm around Wyatt’s waist. The American was obviously still asleep, his body heavy and relaxed against Flynn.

But his other side was cold.

Flynn looked over and saw that the space where Lucy had been was empty—long empty, judging by the lack if warmth when he felt the mattress.

She was gone.

Flynn turned his head away so Wyatt wouldn’t see if he woke up, squeezing his eyes shut. It seemed horribly fitting that this woman who’d waltzed into his life should waltz right back out, vanishing like smoke in the night.

He wished like anything he’d gotten to say goodbye.

Wyatt stirred and Flynn turned to look at him as Wyatt’s eyes opened. He looked incredibly young just then, all of his bravado stripped away and leaving just the softness.

Wyatt’s gaze searched his face, becoming more alert. “She’s gone, isn’t she?”

Flynn nodded.

Wyatt ducked his head down, pressing his face into Flynn’s shoulder. “I see,” he whispered, his voice sounding thick.

“You can see her again. She’ll want to visit Amy or have Amy visit her. You can get to England.”

“Not if I reassigned right away. Denise’ll want me back on the horse right away.” Wyatt gave him a tentative smile. “Maybe I’ll be in Berlin.”

Flynn’s heart felt like it was being squeezed by an unforgiving fist. He’d go back to Russia, East Berlin if he was lucky, but in the best case scenario—Wyatt in East Berlin as well—they’d be risking death every time they met up.

And Lucy was so far out of his reach she might as well be on the moon.

But he couldn’t bring himself to crush Wyatt’s hope. “Maybe.”

Wyatt sat up, rubbing at his eyes—then froze. “Oh, shit, I forgot.”

He scrambled off the bed and dug through the clothes strewn on the floor until he got his pants, digging something out of the pocket.

Carol Preston’s formula notes.

Wyatt held it up. “You know what my mission is?”

Flynn nodded. “I'm guessing it's the same as mine. Kill me if necessary.”

Wyatt looked down at the floor. “I… I can’t.” His voice was thick, and he dared to look back up. Like he was finally willing to let Flynn see his wet eyes, because he’d seen everything else already. “Garcia.”

He got out of bed, walking over to Wyatt and kissing the bridge of his nose, soft, protective.

“I’m not letting Russia have those.” He served them because he’d made a bargain with the devil and he was fully aware of that—but he didn’t have to hand the devil the key to the city.

“I’m not too keen on America getting these either,” Wyatt said, sounding annoyed. “So, what do you suppose we do?”

Twenty minutes later they sat out on the hotel balcony, dressed, the plans burning away in the cigarette ashtray on the table.

They couldn’t touch, not in public, but they could lean against the rail and take in the view, and they could let their hands rest next to each other while they did it.

“Absolutely hated working with you, Peril,” Wyatt said instead of _when’s your flight_.

“You’re a terrible spy, Cowboy,” Flynn replied, instead of _be careful, I won’t be around to rescue you_.

Someone walked up behind them and they both turned around.

It was Mason. Standing behind him on his right was Rufus, and behind him on his left was…

“Lucy,” Wyatt said, as if he couldn’t help himself, as if saying her name was the only thing stopping him from running to her.

Lucy was silent, but her hands were balled into fists at her side and her eyes were wide and desperate.

“I’ve spoken to your superiors,” Mason said. “Seems they were pleased with the results of this mission. Rittenhouse isn’t fully defeated, and having a KGB-CIA team for related threats like this one appeals to them. You’re being reassigned to a special spy cell, under my command along with Agents Carlin and Preston.”

Flynn’s eyes flew to Lucy. He wasn’t going back to Russia or Berlin. He got to stay with Lucy and Wyatt, all three of them together.

It felt, for the first time since he’d been recruited, like he could actually breathe.

Mason looked over at Lucy and gave a small, long-suffering sigh. “Yes all right, I’ll leave you three to it.”

Lucy let out a kind of sob and sprinted, flinging herself at them. Flynn caught her instinctively, feeling his hands tangle with Wyatt’s as Wyatt caught her as well, Lucy clinging to the both of them.

Wyatt was holding onto Lucy with a death grip, like she’d disappear if he relaxed for even an instant. Flynn kissed the top of her head over and over, his heart feeling so full it was going to kill him.

Not that he’d complain.

“Be ready to go in three hours,” Mason called as Rufus fell into line beside him, rolling his eyes.

“Why, where are we going?” Flynn asked.

“Agent Marri has hit a bit of a snag. You’re off to Istanbul, Flynn. You’ll need your curly-wurly shoes.” Mason winked at them and then, clapping Rufus on the back, led his assistant away.

Flynn wondered who the hell Agent Marri was and what they could possibly be getting up to in Istanbul… but then Lucy was kissing him, her face wet and mouth tasting a little like salt, and Wyatt was squeezing his hand and laughing into his shoulder, and he forgot all about Mason.

He forgot about everything except the two people in his arms.

“Oh, by the way,” Mason said, turning around. “Our group has a new codename. Rather a good one, I think.” He smiled. “ _Lifeboat_.”


End file.
